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<h1><a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/29219277">Harry Potter: After the Battle</a> by <a class='authorlink' href='https://archiveofourown.org/users/daeneryske/pseuds/daeneryske'>daeneryske</a></h1>

<table class="full">

<tr><td><b>Category:</b></td><td>Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Genre:</b></td><td>Canon Compliant, Cursed Child doesn't exist, F/M, Healthy Relationships, Multi, Post-Canon, Post-Canon Fix-It, Sexual Content</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Language:</b></td><td>English</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Status:</b></td><td>Completed</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Published:</b></td><td>2021-02-05</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Updated:</b></td><td>2021-02-05</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Packaged:</b></td><td>2021-05-13 07:22:19</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Rating:</b></td><td>Explicit</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Warnings:</b></td><td>No Archive Warnings Apply</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Chapters:</b></td><td>14</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Words:</b></td><td>79,748</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Publisher:</b></td><td>archiveofourown.org</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Story URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/works/29219277</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Author URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/users/daeneryske/pseuds/daeneryske</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Summary:</b></td><td><div class="userstuff">
              <p>After the Battle of Hogwarts, Harry Potter struggles to put his life back together, to embrace a world he didn’t think he’d be able to see, from beginning Auror training and enduring a scathing, unauthorized biography by none other than Rita Skeeter, to salvaging his relationship with Ginny Weasley. Without the guidance of leaders like Albus Dumbledore, Remus Lupin, or even Severus Snape, and freed from the weighty task of defeating Lord Voldemort, Harry is faced with the most querulous mystery to date: himself.</p>
            </div></td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Relationships:</b></td><td>Harry Potter/Ginny Weasley, Hermione Granger/Ron Weasley</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Comments:</b></td><td>30</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Kudos:</b></td><td>46</td></tr>

</table>

<a name="section0001"><h2>1. Orders and Aurors</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Summary for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
            <p>In the wake of grieving the loss of loved one who died during the Battle of Hogwarts, Harry receives a very momentous letter from the Ministry of Magic and slowly begins to piece his future together.</p>
          </blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>Harry was exhausted.</p><p>And yet, he was fairly sure he’d just woken from a fourteen-hour nap. He’d become very familiar with the different types of sunlight that poured in through Ron’s bedroom window depending on the time of day, and he was almost certain it was early evening. A wan, gray light seeped feebly through Ron’s orange curtains, leaving the room tinted in gloom. Someone had opened the window a crack, likely in an effort to give him some fresh air, but the moist breeze filtering in had only made the room muggy. Harry supposed it had rained all day while he slept.</p><p>The faint tinkling of dishes and silverware reached his ears from downstairs, but like most days, he wasn’t hungry. Not even bothering to put on his glasses or check his watch, Harry rolled over in his uncomfortable cot and closed his eyes.</p><p>Every day that followed the battle at Hogwarts was a day Harry didn’t think he’d ever see. He was faced each morning—or evening, as it often happened—with the miracle of being alive, and the almost tedious reality of picking up the pieces of a life that until very recently had been only a daydream, filled with things he believed he’d only be able to do if he could magically transform himself into an unmarked and infinitely more ordinary person.</p><p>Days after the chaos of leaving the castle, Harry had wanted both to rush through all those things he never thought he’d get to do, and sleep for six months straight. But before either of those could occur, he had had a series of funerals to attend, including Fred’s, Lupin’s, and Tonks’s. Harry attended them in a stupor, noting only vaguely that people whispered and pointed reverently as he passed on his way to his seat, and that during the services he had only stared at a fixed spot on the ground, feeling unbearably hollow, while speakers’ voices seemed to come to his ears muffled and distant as if he were a shipwreck underwater.</p><p>Once the funerals were over, Harry had returned to the Burrow with the Weasleys. He’d been sleeping almost non-stop in Ron’s room for over three weeks, with Ron, Mrs. Weasley, and Ginny intermittently stirring him awake for small bits of food. Harry often woke in the morning, slept all day, and woke up again in the middle of the night. He felt old, as if he’d lived several lifetimes. And sleep did little to restore him; he was visited nightly by the phantoms of a life that was already beginning to feel like a half-remembered nightmare, and he woke feeling more tired than he had when he’d fallen asleep. He dreamed of Voldemort and Lupin and Fred and Snape and Dumbledore and Cedric Diggory and his parents and flashes of green light.</p><p>Part of Harry wished he could grieve alone, but ultimately he was simply glad there were still people around him. He was grateful the Weasleys let him recuperate at the Burrow and intrude on their grief, primarily because he had nowhere else to go (Grimmauld Place had been quarantined as unsafe by the Ministry). They all mourned Fred, and Harry in particular grieved the loss of Lupin. Each of them processed in their own ways; Mr. Weasley threw himself into work, George, like Harry, didn’t leave his room for weeks and hadn’t eaten in days, and Mrs. Weasley almost went mad trying to bring him around, according to Ron. She’d also apparently covered the clock in the living room with a pillowcase, because Fred’s hand was now and forever stuck on “Mortal Peril.”</p><p>Over those weeks, Harry’s existence had dwindled down to Ron’s room, his spindly cot, and his unrelenting dreams. He spent more time in his mind’s eye than in reality, and he had few memories from those first weeks back at the Burrow. Time passed strangely.</p><p>One evening, Harry woke to the feeling of someone’s small hand on his forehead. He stirred, and it disappeared.</p><p>“You’re awake,” came a familiar voice. Ginny held out a slice of treacle tart. “Your favorite. I snatched it before Ron could have thirds.”</p><p>Harry tried to smile. “Thanks.”</p><p>As she handed him a fork, he noticed markings on her palm. He took her hand before she could pull away.</p><p>“What’s this?” he asked, turning her hand over to reveal shiny pink lines etched across the palm of her hand. Those hadn’t been there before.</p><p>“It’s nothing—” She pulled her hand away. “I’ll tell you another time.”</p><p>She watched him eat in silence, then took the plate away.</p><p>Time wore on. Eventually, everyone had to find a way to keep going. As of late, Ron had been leaving a copy of the <em>Daily Prophet </em>by Harry’s cot each morning, hoping to get his mind on something else. For a week Harry hadn’t felt like reading them—the Wizarding World seemed oddly foreign to him now—but finally, one day, for a reason unknown to him, Harry sat up and started reading the stack on the floor. He caught up on reforms happening at the Ministry, including mass arrests and major policy changes. Professor McGonagall was made Headmistress at Hogwarts, and Kingsley Shacklebolt was formally appointed Minister of Magic, both of which greatly pleased Harry.</p><p>The world seemed to be slowly piecing itself back together. If only Harry could.</p><p>One morning in early June, Harry was startled awake by a long shriek coming from downstairs. He leapt out of bed upon instinct and crashed into the kitchen for the first time in weeks, wand in hand.</p><p>Mrs. Weasley was standing at the sink, her bright red hair still in rollers, holding a crisp piece of parchment. Ron stood tall and lanky nearby, white-faced and shaking, freckled ankles peeking out of too-short pajama pants.</p><p>“What’s happened?” Harry asked, alarmed.</p><p>Ron absently handed Harry an unopened letter identical to the one Mrs. Weasley was reading. “You got one, too.”</p><p>Stomach sinking, Harry saw that it was from the Ministry of Magic. Harry had never gotten anything good from the Ministry of Magic. He opened the letter apprehensively and read:</p><p> </p><p>
  <em>Dear Mr. Potter,</em>
</p><p>
  <em>As a result of your acts of outstanding bravery and distinction in magic surrounding the Battle of Hogwarts and the resulting defeat of the Dark Lord known as Lord Voldemort, the Ministry of Magic and the Wizengamot have the honor of bestowing upon you, one Mr. Harry James Potter, with the Order of Merlin, First Class.</em>
</p><p>
  <em>A ceremony honoring your achievement will take place on the first of August at nine o’clock in the morning at the Wizengamot’s High Council at the Ministry of Magic, Level Two, where you will receive your medal. Family are welcome to attend. If you cannot attend, send an owl promptly naming a representative to accept the award in your stead.</em>
</p><p>
  <em>Congratulations on your outstanding achievement.</em>
</p><p> </p><p>Kingsley Shacklebolt</p><p>
  <em> Kingsley Shacklebolt</em>
</p><p>
  <em> Minister of Magic</em>
</p><p> </p><p>Brunhilde Stokke</p><p>
  <em>Brunhilde Stokke</em>
</p><p>
  <em> Chief Warlock</em>
</p><p>
  <em> Wizengamot High Council</em>
</p><p> </p><p> </p><p>Stunned, Harry looked back up at Ron, who seemed like he might faint. Mrs. Weasley was gripping the edge of the sink with white fingers reading Ron’s letter over and over.</p><p>“What’s going on?” asked Ginny sleepily as she came into the kitchen in a giant t-shirt, rubbing her eyes. Trembling, Mrs. Weasley handed over the letter.</p><p>Ginny read it, wide-eyed.</p><p>“Harry got one too,” Mrs. Weasley squeaked.</p><p>“Well,” said Ginny weakly, “this beats the hell out of being Head Boy, doesn’t it, Ron?”</p><p>Ron smiled strangely, like he’d forgotten how to.</p><p>Late that night after everyone had gone to bed, Harry went back to the kitchen for a glass of water. Ginny was sitting in the dark at the table with a cup of tea. Harry got the distinct impression that she had been waiting for him, though how she could have been, he didn’t know. They stared at each other in the unlit kitchen.</p><p>Finally, Ginny stood.</p><p>“Harry—”</p><p>And suddenly Harry had a lifetime of things to say to her. He couldn’t keep them from spilling out of his mouth as she walked closer to him.</p><p>“Ginny, I’m so sorry. For all of it, for Fred, for what I’ve put your family through”—she was standing in front of him now—“For not telling you anything, although I couldn’t—but I wanted to”—she brought her lips almost to touch his—“I just wish I could go back and fix—”</p><p>“Harry.”</p><p>Harry opened his mouth to speak again, but then her lips were finally, <em>finally</em> on his and they both found themselves disinterested in words altogether.</p><p>Later that week, Harry received an owl first thing in the morning from Kingsley Shacklebolt, asking him to join the Auror Office. Harry had given up on the idea of being an Auror after he’d decided not to return to Hogwarts, knowing that that meant he couldn’t take his N.E.W.T.s and therefore would have no chance of meeting the basic requirements for being an Auror: getting at least five N.E.W.T.s. This was all not to mention the intense character and aptitude tests applicants had to undergo in order to even be considered for the job.</p><p>“I suppose we’ve already passed those tests in our own way, eh?” said Ronthrough a mouthful of grapes as he and Harry discussed it over breakfast in his room one morning. Ron had gotten the same letter.</p><p>Kingsley’s letter had made possible one of the parts of Harry’s future he never thought he’d get to actualize, and he wondered impatiently how quickly they could get started with training.</p><p>“D’you think Hermione got this, too?” asked Harry, spreading marmalade on his toast.</p><p>“I dunno, I haven’t heard from her in a couple weeks. I hope she got the Order of Merlin medal, too.” Hermione had traveled to Australia after the war to find her parents and restore their memories. She was home with them now in Hampstead, filling them in on recent events and helping them get their lives back in order. Their unannounced and prolonged absence at work at the dentist’s office hadn’t been easy to explain.</p><p>As Harry read Kingsley’s letter again, he felt Ron’s eyes boring into him. Harry looked up warily.</p><p>“What?”</p><p>“It’s just—Hermione and I are dating,” sputtered Ron, suddenly concentrating on buttering an already-buttered piece of toast. “I mean, we haven’t actually been on a date, since she left for Australia, but we’ve written a couple times, and we agreed—I mean, talked about it—and we’re together. It seemed silly to even ask her, but I couldn’t assume, you know? She might’ve just kissed me in the—the heat of the moment—there was a war going on—”</p><p>“I remember,” said Harry, the corner of his mouth twitching.</p><p>“Maybe she felt differently after everything settled down and she knew we weren’t about to die. . . . So I asked. And we’re together.” Ron eyed Harry tentatively, like he wasn’t sure how Harry would take the news.</p><p>“I think that’s brilliant,” said Harry. “Really.”</p><p>“You do?”</p><p>“Well, I do think you’re both barmy for not getting together years ago,” said Harry, flicking a grape at him.</p><p>Later that morning, Ron and Harry wrote back to Kingsley saying they’d meet him at the Ministry the next day.</p><p>“Let’s . . . not tell Mum yet,” muttered Ron as he tied the letters to a violently eager Pigwidgeon in his bedroom. “She won’t be pleased sending—OW, Pig, stop it!—another son to the front lines so soon.” Ron sucked the finger his owl had bitten in his excitement of being sent on a mission.</p><p>But Mr. Weasley found out about their offers at the Ministry and approached Ron and Harry in private after work that evening.</p><p>“I understand why you want to keep this from your mother right now, but I would tell her sooner rather than later. She’s tougher than you think, and will be very proud of both of you.”</p><p>“What’s happened?” Mrs. Weasley appeared in the living room holding a dust rag as if summoned. “Why are you three huddled over there, looking suspicious?”</p><p>Ron told his mother the news.</p><p>“Oh, how very brave of you! First Orders of Merlin, now this . . . to think, Aurors in the family!” She hugged the two of them tightly. “Just promise me you’ll be careful. Both of you.” She then began meticulously dusting the living room. “Aurors!”</p><p>Mrs. Weasley, despite her anguish over Fred’s death, had managed to keep the Burrow in top shape over the past month. Ron assumed this was her way of processing, or perhaps avoiding, her grief; after all, she was never a woman to sit around and mope. But while the kitchen was always sparkling and filled with hot food, and the laundry was always tumbling or hanging to dry in the back yard, the garden needed a great deal of help. Weeds had almost overtaken the vegetable patch and the gnomes ran amok in the bushes by the dozens.</p><p>So that afternoon, Harry helped Ginny de-gnome the garden. It had rained again and their shoes squelched in the grass as they walked into the garden where the azalea bushes sat heavy, plump, and drooping. Harry nabbed and threw scampering gnomes over the garden hedge for a quarter of an hour while Ron’s words echoed in his ears: <em>I couldn’t assume, you know? She might’ve just kissed me in the</em>—<em>the heat of the moment. . . .</em></p><p>As Harry flung a particularly chubby gnome over the hedge, he turned nervously to Ginny.</p><p>“Erm . . . Ginny?”</p><p>“Yeah?” She was kneeling in a damp azalea bush, her top half completely inside the bramble, struggling with a very nasty-sounding gnome.</p><p>“I know that we—y’know—well, I don’t want to presume, but—if—”</p><p>Ginny wrenched the gnome out of the bush, spun it around, and launched it over the hedge before she turned to look at him.</p><p>“Are you asking me if I still want to date you?”</p><p>Harry scratched the back of his neck, amazed for the thousandth time at her boldness. “Yeah.”</p><p>Ginny gave him her sideways grin and walked up to him. “Yes, I do. And anything else you have in mind.”</p><p>Harry picked a pink petal out of her wet hair and kissed her, not caring if the entire Weasley family could see them from the kitchen window.</p><p>At their meeting with Kingsley, Harry and Ron learned the Minister had waived both of their N.E.W.T. and aptitude test requirements, citing recent events, but they would still complete almost three years of rigorous training. They could start on the first of July.</p><p>The next morning, Ron finally heard back from Hermione. A very large owl, whose species was unknown to Harry and which he could only assume was an Australian breed, perched upon the kitchen windowsill. Ron extracted the letter and read it while the rest of the family ate breakfast.</p><p>“She’s coming on Saturday!” Ron exclaimed, and he turned suddenly pink. Harry thought he knew why; he’d be seeing Hermione for the first time since they’d officially decided to date. Harry decided to make himself scarce in Ron’s bedroom while Hermione was around.</p><p>“Did she get the Order of Merlin, too?” Ginny asked from the table.</p><p>Ron read further. “Yes! And, blimey—” Ron swallowed, turning a deeper shade of pink, “her parents are coming to the ceremony.”</p><p>“Well, of course they are!” said Mrs. Weasley, passing a plate of bacon.</p><p>“Meeting the parents, eh?” came a teasing voice by the stairs.</p><p>“<em>George!</em>” Mrs. Weasley wiped her hands on her apron and seized her son. “You’re awake!”</p><p>George released his mother and stood in his pajamas, his red hair nearly as disheveled and unkempt as Harry’s normally was, his stockier, shorter frame slumping as if it were out of practice of keeping George standing upright. Yet his eyes were alight with mischief.</p><p>“I wouldn’t miss Ron making an idiot of himself in front of his new girlfriend’s parents, would I?”</p><p>Harry could tell Ron wanted to shoot back a rebuttal, but he settled for a good-natured scowl.</p><p>“Eat, George, eat!” Mrs. Weasley scooted a plate of eggs in front of him as he sat next to Harry.</p><p>“So, I hear Percy’s finally been unseated as Mum’s favorite son,” George said, winking at Ron. “Who’s gonna break it to him?”</p><p>“Oh, George,” said Mrs. Weasley. She smacked him with the dish towel and automatically turned to smack his twin, only to find empty space. There was an awkward silence in the kitchen as everyone pretended not to have seen. Mrs. Weasley cleared her throat and went to wash the growing pile of dishes.</p><p>Everyone ate, aware of the absence next to George. But Harry, guilty as he felt about it, wasn’t solely interested in focusing on the past anymore. As he considered the prospect of becoming an Auror, being reunited as a trio with Ron and Hermione, and spending all the time he had now with Ginny, he couldn’t help but look forward, too.</p><p>Hermione arrived on Saturday and immediately noticed the strange air in the Burrow—there was still a great sense of mourning about the house like a thick, sour, pungent odor, yet it was mingled with spritzes of hope and excitement like citrus perfume, as she, Ron, Harry, and Ginny each had good things to look forward to. Harry in particular was in the best mood he could remember being in for ages, as all four of them were finally under one roof again. Yet it seemed disrespectful to let the happiness overpower the sadness just now, so much of the forward-looking planning was done in whispers.</p><p>And so it was that Hermione, Harry, and Ron spent an entire day catching up secluded in Ron’s room, Pigwidgeon zooming around near the ceiling and hooting merrily as ever. He was an inappropriately loud source of glee around the Burrow and Ron had been keeping him caged a lot lately, which really only served to make him twice as energetic whenever he was freed.</p><p>“I’ve been so busy this summer,” gushed a tan Hermione from Harry’s cot,having pointedly chosen not to sit on Ron’s bed. She was nearly as excited as the tiny owl. Ron was gazing at her with such affection and longing that Harry felt awkward even sitting in the same room with them. “Australia is <em>wonderful</em>. I didn’t want to leave! The art, the history, the <em>beaches</em>. My parents are all squared away now—told their patients they’d gone on a sort of soul-searching retreat to lose themselves, you know—well it’s almost true, isn’t it? And the folks who’d bought our house actually had to move to Montana of all places to take care of one of their relatives, so we were actually able to get our house back, thank Merlin. Though with a slightly increased mortgage, mind you—”</p><p>“Did you get the Order of Merlin?” Harry asked, less interested in Hermione’s parents’ housing situation.</p><p>“Oh, yes! Mom and Dad didn’t quite understand the significance of it, so I explained it was sort of like the Nobel Peace Prize.” Harry nodded, but Ron had to have that explained. Hermione was gushing again, trying in vain to tuck her thick hair behind her ear. “They were really pleased when I explained things. Not that I think I deserve the <em>Nobel Peace Prize</em>—”</p><p>“Did you also get a letter just from Kingsley?” Harry interrupted again.</p><p>“I did. I was very flattered, but I don’t fancy myself an Auror.”<br/>
“What’ll you do, then?” asked Harry.</p><p>“I asked him if I could start in the Department for the Regulation and Control of Magical Creatures. I want to keep helping house-elves and other mistreated beings.”</p><p>“Of course you do.” Ron rolled his eyes at her, but quickly resumed staring in wonderment at her as if she were the moon.</p><p>“And another thing—I’m going back to get my N.E.W.T.s.”</p><p>“You’re <em>what</em>?” The dreamy smile wiped off Ron’s face. “Let me get this straight: you <em>don’t </em>want to become an Auror, which has been handed to you on a silver platter without taking a single N.E.W.T., and you <em>do </em>want to go back to school and take those horrible tests, for no reason?”</p><p>“Not for no reason, Ronald. It’s important to me. I want to finish at Hogwarts properly.”</p><p>“So you’ll be going back to school with Ginny, then?” asked Harry.</p><p>“Yes. But Professor McGonagall thinks I can finish in one term, and then I can start at the Ministry.”</p><p>Harry smiled at her. “So you’ve finally given up eating and sleeping, I see.”</p><p>Late that evening, Harry sat up reading in the living room. Ron finally came down in his pajamas.</p><p>“Are you coming up?” he asked, toothbrush in hand.</p><p>“I can stay down here for a while, if . . .”</p><p>Ron stared at him, nonplussed. “If what?”</p><p>Harry raised an eyebrows at him. “If you and Hermione want to . . . catch up.”</p><p>“Oh,” said Ron. Then he started. “Oh—! Dammit! She went to bed!”</p><p>Harry laughed. “We can try again later. Just let me know.”</p><p>The summer passed quickly once new plans began to be put into motion. Ginny practiced Quidditch almost every day (she’d be returning on the Gryffindor Quidditch team as a Chaser) and Hermione was already studying every chance she got.</p><p>The family received an owl from Percy saying he’d gotten a flat outside Brighton (“Tell him he’s been dethroned!” called George from the living room) and a job in the Department of Magical Transportation at the Ministry. Mrs. Weasley was thrilled.</p><p>George eventually went back to Weasley's Wizard Wheezes, which had been closed since the spring, to take inventory and prepare it for its grand reopening in the fall.</p><p>And Ron and Harry began their Auror training. Kingsley hadn’t been overstating things—it was the most mentally and physically demanding work Harry had ever done. He and Ron started with a rigorous course on Concealment and Disguises (“I didn’t know we’d have homework!” whined Ron) and they were told that in the fall they’d start one on Stealth and Tracking. There were also courses in their future on Poisons and Antidotes, Magical Jurisprudence, and Criminal Investigation.</p><p>On their first day of training, Harry and Ron walked through the Ministry of Magic toward where Mr. Weasley had said the Auror Office was, but they quickly got lost in the labyrinthian hallways amid interdepartmental memos and scurrying employees. Finally, after making countless lefts and rights at random, Harry and Ron somehow found where they were supposed to be and walked into the back of a sloping, large paneled room much like a lecture hall where thirty other prospective Aurors sat toward the front, facing a large chalk board and an imposing-looking wizard.</p><p>The others in the room whispered to themselves when they saw Harry, which seemed to displease the man up front.</p><p>“Glad you found the place okay,” said the wizard dryly, eyeing the clock, which was indicating five minutes past the hour. Harry took the wizard to be the Head of the Auror Office, whom Shacklebolt had said was named Gawain Robards. Robards stood sternly with a thick gray goatee and faded black robes. As Harry and Ron walked down to the front of the room, Harry noticed his gray hair had been shaved so close he almost appeared bald, revealing a large, healed gash right on the crown of his head that looked to Harry like it should have been a fatal blow.</p><p>“Yeah, it’s a maze though here,” said Ron, not picking up on Robards’s sarcasm.</p><p>“And if you had been pursuing a suspect through these corridors,” said Robards, “you would have lost him.”</p><p>Harry and Ron sat down sheepishly, and Harry felt as though he had just submitted himself for a reincarnation of his times spent in the Potions dungeons.</p><p>“Now that we’ve all shown up,” said Robards acidly, “let’s get started.</p><p>“You all think you want to become Aurors, and I can guarantee most of you are wrong. This is not glamorous work. You likely have visions of chasing some criminal heroically through the streets and saving the city from mortal peril, but that is a once-in-a-career occurrence. If you’ve come here for fame and glory, or simply for a good time”—he looked right at Harry—“try the Department for Magical Games and Sports downstairs.”</p><p>Everyone’s eyes were on Auror Robards.</p><p>“Unless you prove yourself to be supremely elite, you will spend most of your time as an Auror filing paperwork, conducting interviews, following up on leads, taking notes, digging through garbage for evidence, and responding to incidences with lethal potential that end up being so minor and innocuous they would bore even your grandmother.”</p><p>Harry felt Ron slump slightly in his seat.</p><p>“If, however,” Robards went on, “you are interested in this grueling line of work, you will become a highly-trained, specialized officer tasked with upholding the law and protecting our world from the Dark Arts and worse.</p><p>“That will not happen for most of you.”</p><p>There was an awkward stirring around the room as everyone eyed each other.</p><p>“Now. Your first course is in Concealment and Disguises. Not much good are you as an Auror if you can’t protect yourself first and foremost. There are a number of ways to hide or alter your appearance. . . .”</p><p>Auror Robards went on for another three hours, and then got everyone upand magically cleared the chairs away for a set of physical drills to test their fitness. He told them that in addition to their coursework over the next three years, they would be put through a series of physical training in advanced magical combat and other elements of practical defense.</p><p>When the class was over, everyone slumped out of the training room, exhausted and sweaty.</p><p>“Potter, a moment,” called Auror Robards. Harry gave Ron a quick nod to go on ahead then walked back to the front of the room, where Auror Robards still stood in front of the chalk board with his arms crossed. Goatee twitching, he waited to speak until the door closed with a deep thud after Ron.</p><p>Robards’s gray eyes bored into Harry’s. “I know Shacklebolt waived your placement tests and all that, but I just want you to know you’ll find no more exceptions or special considerations in my training room. There’ll be no skating by, not having done the reading, relying on your looks. You’re only here because of Shacklebolt’s good graces. I don’t know you, and I will judge your fitness as an Auror equally with everyone else—I don’t care how famous you are.”</p><p>Harry, who did not want special treatment and who had faced his fair share of formidable teachers attempting to intimidate him at the start of term, merely grinned.</p><p>“I would expect no less, sir,” said Harry pleasantly.</p><p>Taken aback, Auror Robards nodded curtly. “Off you go, then.”</p><p>Harry and Ron returned to the Burrow that evening tired and overwhelmed, with piles of reading to finish.</p><p>“We defeated Voldemort and got Orders of Merlin, but here I am still filling out homework,” Ron grumbled later that night over a giant course book in the living room. They worked by the dying flames in the fireplace, Harry taking notes on a spare bit of parchment as he read.</p><p>Harry told Ron what Auror Robards had said, and Ron scoffed.</p><p>“If he knew you, he wouldn’t have said any of that rubbish. Hell, you could probably teach the damn class. If he knew you had an Invisibility Cloak and mastered the Polyjuice Potion when you were twelve, he’d realize you don’t even need to take a course on Concealment and Disguise.”</p><p>“I get the feeling neither of those would impress him,” said Harry, scraping excess ink off his quill. “The Cloak isn’t a skill, I’m just lucky to have it. And concocting a dangerous potion to break school rules would just prove to him that I’m trouble.”</p><p>No,Harry thought, there was only one way to prove himself to Auror Robards. Harry had decided, the moment Robards had eyed him like he didn’t deserve to be there, to take his training very seriously, to do what he’d never done at Hogwarts: read every page he was assigned and practice every exercise, no matter how difficult it got.</p><p>Despite his new lack of free time, Harry still found pockets of the day that summer to help Ginny practice Quidditch. He ran through drills with her in the orchard, and occasionally Ron played Keeper as Hermione read in the grass.</p><p>On the morning of his birthday, when the sun was already hot and bright, Harry passed Ginny the Quaffle in the orchard. “So, I was talking with Ron, and I wrote to Demelza, Ritchie, and Jimmy.”</p><p>“Oh?”</p><p>“I nominated you for Quidditch captain.”</p><p>Ginny almost dropped the Quaffle. “Really?”</p><p>“You’re the best one for the job, and McGonagall and the team agree.”</p><p>Ginny zoomed straight at Harry, nearly knocking him off his broom, and kissed him full on the mouth.</p><p>“Oi!” Ron called after a moment from the makeshift goal posts.</p><p>The morning of the Order of Merlin ceremony, Mrs. Weasley insisted Ron wear dress robes, which were characteristically worn and shabby, but not without an excess of lace. Ron explained very loudly that he did not want to look like a “fancy prat” while everyone else was in normal clothes. Harry suspected he especially did not want to meet Hermione’s parents in such garb. The ensuing argument, in which Ron and his mother got into a screaming match in the middle of the kitchen, could only be diffused by Mr. Weasley, who suggested Ron wear some of his old work robes, still nicer than everyday wear. The fight seemed to recalibrate everyone and point the Burrow, even just a little bit, toward normalcy. Once everyone was dressed in clothes they could tolerate, Mr. and Mrs. Weasley, George, Ron, Ginny, Harry, and Hermione used Floo Power to travel to Whitehall, crammed into the telephone box, descended down, and walked through the Atrium of the Ministry of Magic.</p><p>They met Hermione’s parents, escorted by Percy, beside the fireplaces in the long hall of the Atrium. Mr. and Mrs. Granger looked out of place in thoroughly Muggle clothes, which seemed to impress, rather than perplex, Ministry passersby in flowing robes, who likely thought the couple also worked at the Ministry and were going undercover in a Muggle area in very convincing outfits.</p><p>“Mum, Dad,” said Hermione, smiling, “you remember Ron.”</p><p>Mrs. Granger, wearing a pencil skirt and short-sleeved sweater, pulled Ron into a hug and Mr. Granger, in a tweed suit and with hair the exact same color as Hermione’s, clapped him genially on the back. “We’re so happy to see you again, and so pleased you’re with our Hermione.”</p><p>Ron shook their hands, deep red and looking immensely relieved. George looked disappointed.</p><p>The High Council hall, where Harry should have had his hearing for violating the International Statute of Secrecy three years ago before it was relocated to one of the trial courtrooms, was decorated in handsome green, purple, and white curtains and a giant Order of Merlin seal hung on the far wall. The ceremony itself was formal and brief. When Harry's, Ron’s, and Hermione’s names were spoken, the hall erupted in applause. Harry spotted Professor McGonagall on the High Council and he thought he saw her wipe a tear from her eye.</p><p>Mercifully, they did not make all three of them speak, but instead allowed Hermione to speak for the trio. Harry was moved and impressed by her speech, dedicating her award to those who had fallen, and ensuring that the three of them would use their time moving forward to continuing to improve the wizarding world. The three of them walked forward and Brunhilde Stokke, the Chief Warlock and a very portly witch with pink hair, placed their medals around their necks.</p><p>As Harry watched his two best friends, beaming with smiles as they looked around the applauding room, he thought no one deserved these medals more than these two.</p>
  </div></div>
<a name="section0002"><h2>2. Hero or Ham?</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Summary for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
            <p>On a trip to Diagon Alley, Harry discovers that his private life is once again public knowledge, thanks to a certain reviled journalist. Ginny makes an offer Harry cannot refuse.</p>
          </blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>A week later, Ron took time off from Auror training to travel with Hermione. (He’d lied and told Auror Robards he’d come down with the Mumblemumps.) Hermione had grown to love Australia during her short time there and she wanted to show it to Ron. George started staying at the Leaky Cauldron so he could be near the shop and sign off on early-morning shipments.</p><p>The Burrow was oddly empty now, with just Harry, Ginny, and Mr. and Mrs. Weasley. On Ginny’s seventeenth birthday, Harry crept into her bedroom, carrying his present for her. Glittering morning light filtered in through the curtains as she slept in her unkempt way, limbs splayed wide, her hair spilling across her face. He couldn’t resist climbing into the tiny bed with her, pulse racing at the newness of the act. She groaned and swept her hair out of her face, eyes slowly focusing on him.</p><p>“Sneaky Potter,” she murmured, smiling into her pillow.</p><p>“Happy birthday.” He took in the smell of her hair.</p><p>“If I recall,” she said, her voice rough and hoarse, “I gave you the kiss of your life on <em>your</em> seventeenth birthday.”</p><p>Harry gave a small laugh. “Is that my cue to reciprocate?”</p><p>Ginny shrugged like it didn’t matter to her either way, but she was still half-grinning into her pillow. He took hold of her head in both hands and pulled her lips against his. Harry remembered her kiss on his seventeenth birthday well, their bodies pressed together, fingers tangled in each other’s hair, with the omnipresent fear between them that there was not enough time, that it could be their last kiss. But that morning, Harry kissed her slowly and deeply, relishing the feeling that now, they had all the time in the world.</p><p>When he was through, he set her head back on the pillow.</p><p>“Will that do?”</p><p>She gazed up at him as if mesmerized, lips parted, and nodded slowly.</p><p>“I also got you this,” said Harry, handing over the parcel. Ginny began unwrapping it, recovering from her daze. “I was torn between this one and another one with all these really, <em>really</em> filthy jokes in it, but then I thought you’d like this better.”</p><p><em>“Ninety-Nine Truly Revolting, Rare Hexes and Jinxes You’ve Never Heard Of?” </em>Ginny read, flipping the book at random. “Excellent.”</p><p>“There’s one in there that moves all your body hair to your armpits—can you imagine? Hagrid wouldn’t be able to put his arms down—”</p><p>“Ooh, look at this one, turns all your freckles into fleas. I’ll have to try that on Ron next time he uses up all the hot water. . . .”</p><p>Harry and Ginny laughed together as they flipped through the book, imagining the comical results on people they knew.</p><p>“Wait,” said Ginny, still giggling, “What were some of these <em>really </em>dirty jokes in the other book you almost got me?”</p><p>“I don’t remember,” said Harry, wracking his brain. “Oh—what’s the difference between a snowman and a snow-woman?” He gave Ginny a second, but she just raised her eyebrows. “Snowballs.”</p><p>Ginny let out a single laugh. “That’s the best you can do?”</p><p>“Well, I can’t remember the really horrible ones!”</p><p>“I’ve heard way worse than that.” Suddenly very serious, Ginny looked him full in the face. “What goes in hard and dry and comes out wet and soft?”</p><p>Harry froze, face warming. “Erm . . .”</p><p>“Drooble’s Best Blowing Gum,” said Ginny, smacking him on the arm and laughing. “You should see your face!”</p><p>Harry adjusted his glasses shyly and smiled. “Okay, you win. I’m off to breakfast.” Harry sat up.</p><p>“Wait, I’ve got more!” Ginny said, pulling him back.</p><p>“I’m sure you do!”</p><p>“What’s long and firm—”</p><p>“Nope!” Harry yanked his arm away and tumbled onto the floor, laughing. “Not falling for it!”</p><p>“—and goes between a bloke’s legs?”</p><p>“I’m telling your Mum,” Harry teased as he got to his feet.</p><p>“And it helps you score—oh, and I know you always enjoyed polishing yours!”</p><p>Laughing, Harry opened her door and stepped into the hall. “You’re a dangerous woman, Weasley.”</p><p>“Harry, no! You’ve got it all wrong! Harry, you can’t go, it’s my birthday! Harry! IT’S A BROOMSTICK!”</p><p>In their remaining days before term started, Ginny and Harry continued practicing Quidditch in the orchard, Ginny whizzing around him with dizzying maneuvers she’d invented herself. Harry continued his Auror training, and Ginny helped him study at night. While the loss of loved ones still lingered like a rain cloud over the Burrow, Harry had scarcely been happier. As he lounged and ate lunch with Ginny in the orchard on sunny afternoons and tried not to laugh too loudly with her late at night as they shared a single armchair by the dying fire, he was as cheerful as he’d been when he and Ginny had first started dating, lying beneath their willow tree and finding secluded corners in the castle. They belonged in a world of their own making.</p><p>A week before the start of term, Harry, Ginny, and her parents traveled to Diagon Alley to get Ginny’s books and supplies for her last year at Hogwarts. Almost immediately upon their arrival, Harry and Ginny had trouble navigating the crowds without being noticed.</p><p>But the true horror came when they approached Flourish and Blotts that morning. As Harry walked toward the shop, there in the front window sat about a dozen other Harrys staring back at him. He blinked and realized that the faces were on the cover of twelve identical books. The titles blazed in emerald green ink: <em>Harry Potter: Hero or Ham? </em>His faces on the covers alternated between winking and an apparent expression of contrived innocence.</p><p>Harry could have predicted the author’s name even if it hadn’t been printed bigger than the title at the bottom: Rita Skeeter.</p><p>Ginny swore under her breath.</p><p>There were several people already reading their copies on the street, and Harry could feel scores of eyes on him. Ginny threw her hair back and marched forward into Flourish and Blotts. Harry set his jaw and followed her.</p><p>As Ginny shopped, Harry buried his face in a copy of <em>Magical Herbs and Fungi</em>, but it was no use; he’d been spotted by a gaggle of teenage girls, hidden poorly behind a display of <em>Witch Weekly </em>back issues. Harry thought he might have recognized them from Hogwarts. They each clutched copies of the biography to their chests, giggling and whispering.</p><p>“Ooh, look at his <em>hair</em>!” said one admiringly.</p><p>“He never seemed that arrogant to <em>me</em>.”</p><p>Harry walked farther away, ears burning, toward a section of books on wart removal. The girls’ voices carried easily.</p><p>“But look how he walks—Rita’s right, he <em>swaggers</em>.”</p><p>Once Ginny had paid for her books, Harry followed her back out into the street, trying to walk in as un-swaggering a manner as possible, the girls’ giggles and whispers still buzzing in his ears.</p><p>“Here,” Ginny said outside, handing him a copy of the biography. She also held a used copy of <em>The Standard Book of Spells, Grade 7.</em></p><p>“You <em>bought </em>one of these?” Harry asked, holding the biography by one corner like it was covered in bogies.</p><p>“Better to be informed,” said Ginny, sounding a lot like Hermione.</p><p>Harry read the back cover out of a perverse curiosity:</p><p><em>Harry Potter. The legend, the Chosen One, the Boy Who Lived. We all know the story. </em>OR DO WE? <em>Through exclusive sources, top secret intel, and a vast array of impressive research by yours truly, Rita Skeeter, this exposé into the most famous wizard of our age will force you to question what you thought you knew about our Boy Wonder. Is he the humble hero we all know and love, or is there a dark and seedy underbelly kept carefully under wraps—UNTIL NOW? Join me in removing the mask that is the Wizarding world’s most recognizable face.</em></p><p>Harry shoved the book back at Ginny. “I’m not reading this dung.”</p><p>“Fine, then I’ll read it.” Ginny took the book back and walked on.</p><p>Harry wished desperately that he had brought his Invisibility Cloak as they walked through Diagon Alley. The group of girls who had been spying on him in Flourish and Blotts were following them now, whispering loudly in their wake.</p><p>“He’s so handsome—” one hissed.</p><p>“Is that Ginny Weasley?”</p><p>Harry walked faster, but the girls kept up.</p><p>“I thought they broke it off,” groaned one girl only feet behind them.</p><p>“They’re still dating, according to Rita Skeeter!” said the girl’s friend.</p><p>“She doesn’t seem like a ‘ravishing redhead’ to me!”</p><p>Throughly irritated now, Harry pulled Ginny into Mr. Mulpepper’s Apothecary. Seeming to think it too obvious to follow them into the tiny shop, the girls walked on, clearly disappointed.</p><p>When the coast was clear, the couple finally met back up with Mr. and Mrs. Weasley, who had seen the book and seemed to understand Harry didn’t want to linger. They’d already stocked up on fresh parchment, ink, and quills for Ginny.</p><p>Harry and Ginny walked quickly to the crowded Magical Menagerie to get food for Arnold, Ginny’s Pygmy Puff.</p><p>“Come to show off, Potter?” called a boy wearing a Slytherin vest and holding a pure white cat.</p><p>“Yeah, give us a pirouette, Potter!”</p><p>Harry had never been so happy to leave Diagon Alley.</p><p>The night before Ginny was to go to King’s Cross, Harry caved and started reading from his biography:</p><p>
  <em>IT ALL STARTED IN GODRIC’S HOLLOW on that fateful Halloween night, when the all-powerful He-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named came to the homely Potter residence. It was a quaint house on a rather dingy street, and the Potters could have afforded better. Perhaps they were stingy. Sources report they never paid their membership dues to the then-secret Order of the Phoenix. . . .</em>
</p><p>He gripped the book as he flipped angrily to the next chapter.</p><p>
  <em>Harry Potter hardly had the humble beginning we all might have imagined. In fact, he was a difficult child growing up, to say the least, causing his Muggle aunt and uncle, Petunia and Vernon Dursley, to keep him chained up in the basement, as he had violent, magical outbursts that scared Mr. and Mrs. Dursley’s young son, Dudley. One notable incident occurred at a local zoo where Harry set a venomous python on his cousin (it is widely known of Harry’s ability to speak Parseltongue, the language made famous by none other than Salazar Slytherin). On a second occasion, Harry attacked another innocent relative, his aunt Marge. He blew her up, causing her to float helplessly through the streets like an Inter-Magical-Species Pride Parade balloon.</em>
</p><p>
  <em>As a schoolboy, he terrorized his Muggle classmates, jinxing them behind their backs, and constantly clamored for attention, leaping onto school buildings and turning his own hair blue. Many believe it was the trauma of his past that twisted Harry’s sense of self and made him believe he was invincible, above the rules.</em>
</p><p>He wanted to stop, but he was drawn in to the twisted version of his own life, like he was watching a particularly nasty Quidditch injury occurring in slow motion through a pair of Omnioculars. He thumbed ahead a couple chapters.</p><p>
  <em>At Hogwarts, Harry’s penchant for arrogance and insatiable need for attention never dwindled. When he was merely twelve years old, he couldn’t resist entering his own name illegally into the Goblet of Fire, age restrictions be damned, to be chosen as a fourth Champion for the Triwizard Tournament, and he stopped at nothing to claw his way to the top—one Champion, Cyrus Diggory, died under mysterious circumstances. (It was later rumored that Harry’s name had been entered by someone else without his consent, but this was never verified by our sources.)</em>
</p><p>
  <em>“Potter was always so full of himself,” testifies one former Hogwarts student who wishes to remain nameless. “Always sashaying late into class, getting himself into trouble for attention, sticking his nose in things that didn’t concern him. Back in our first year there was that whole business with some magical stone hidden in the castle, and Potter and his sidekicks just had to go and find it, wanting all the glory for themselves. And Dumbledore was too blind to Potter’s ploys to see it. That old dingbat stole the House Cup from Slytherin and gave it to Gryffindor just because of Potter. Completely unfair.”</em>
</p><p>
  <em>The poison doesn’t fall far from the yew tree, as it is well documented that Harry’s own father, James Potter, behaved similarly during his time at Hogwarts. He was considered pompous, disrespectful, and rowdy, pranking students in the corridors and causing distractions in class, redeemed only slightly by his moderate Quidditch skills, which he passed on to his only son. Many of James Potter’s former schoolmates recall him being a bully, even intimidating his future wife, Lily née Evans, into dating him.</em>
</p><p>Harry crashed into Ginny’s room where she was packing her trunk. “Listen to this,” he said angrily, holding the book.</p><p>
  <em>Harry’s lust for fame even extended to his romantic life. Despite the fact that he was undeniably handsome, Harry had several failed and ill-fated relationships, including a brief fling with his close friend, Hermione Granger, top of her class, before apparently growing weary of her inoffensive if not boring prettiness. He then moved on to the much more attractive Cho Chang, driven primarily by jealousy that she would like anyone else but him. (At the time, she had been dating the very boy who was killed during the Triwizard Tournament, with Harry, curiously, as the only witness to testify that he himself hadn’t been the very one to snuff him out.)</em>
</p><p>
  <em>But it seemed in the end that the only girl who could keep Harry’s short-fused attentions was the ravishing redhead, Ginny Weasley, younger sister of the now-famous Ron Weasley. Ginny had fawned over Harry for years before he finally bothered to look her way. Harry was likely attracted most to Miss Weasley’s ardent obsession with him, bloating his already inflated ego, though she is by far the most attractive girl he’s dated. One can only guess how long that doomed romance will last.</em>
</p><p>Harry slammed the book closed. “She’s making me out to be some kind of Gilderoy Lockhart,” he growled, sitting on Ginny’s bed.</p><p>But Ginny seemed to find it quite humorous. “Who are all these <em>ill-fated relationships </em>you haven’t told me about, hm?”</p><p>“It’s not funny, Ginny. She basically accuses me of murder.”</p><p>“Harry, you’re being stupid,” said Ginny, folding a pair of jeans. “Anyone who matters knows Rita Skeeter is rubbish, and more importantly, that you’re not anything like this.”</p><p>“I wonder if you’d be so relaxed about it if someone wrote an entire book about <em>you</em>,” Harry muttered.</p><p>But Harry knew Ginny was right, and he tried to put the book out of his mind. He got off Ginny’s bed and helped her pack, organizing her quills and parchment.</p><p>“It feels so wrong to go to Hogwarts without you,” said Ginny after a moment of silence.</p><p>“Maybe you’ll finally have a normal school year for once,” Harry said dryly as he straightened the stack of schoolbooks on her desk.</p><p>“Yes,” smirked Ginny, “especially since my murderous boyfriend won’t be there to hog all the attention.”</p><p>Harry rolled his eyes and smiled.</p><p>But Ginny hadn’t seen; she was suddenly very intent on arranging her sweaters in her trunk. “I suppose I’ll need something to remember you by.”</p><p>“Oh—well, you can have whatever you want. The Marauder’s Map might be—”</p><p>Ginny looked up at him meaningfully, her thick ponytail cascading over her shoulder. “I don’t want the Marauder’s Map, Harry.”</p><p>Harry stared at her stupidly for a moment, then his stomach flipped when he realized her meaning.</p><p>“Oh,” was all he could manage as a hand flew reflexively into his hair. But Ginny just kept looking at him, waiting to hear what he thought on the subject.</p><p>“Here?” Harry finally breathed right as Mrs. Weasley called for Ginny from the kitchen. “That seems like a bad idea.”</p><p>“When has that ever stopped you?”</p><p>Mrs. Weasley called her again.</p><p>“Tonight at eleven,” Ginny hissed as she passed Harry and left the room.</p><p>That night, Harry couldn’t sleep. He lay wide awake in Ron’s bed, listening to the creaking footsteps above him (the ghoul, probably) and water flowing through the pipes. The house quieted after a while until the crickets outside were the only thing left to hear. The house was asleep.</p><p>As it neared eleven o’clock, Harry’s stomach seemed to float in his belly as if he were at sea. He hadn’t thought he’d survive the Battle of Hogwarts, yet he had. And here he lay, very much alive, his girlfriend only four small flights of stairs away. Didn’t he want to? Of course he wanted to. . . .</p><p>Harry thought back to the first time he’d ever met Ginny, at Platform Nine and Three Quarters years ago. To the night she’d risked her life with him at the Department of Mysteries. And to their first kiss, in front of the entirety of Gryffindor House. To her long red hair, and too many freckles to count, and that blazing look . . .</p><p>She had bewitched him, and it seemed at once to Harry there was only one thing to be done for it.</p><p>Harry crept out of Ron’s bed, trying to make as little sound as possible. He eased the bedroom door open with a small creak.</p><p>In the hallway, Harry felt more sure of himself, as he always seemed to once he’d decided on something. He made his way downstairs, sliding along the walls to avoid the well-worn and squeaky middle parts of the stairs, a trick he’d made regular use of at Privet Drive.</p><p>Harry tapped gently on Ginny’s bedroom door. She cracked it open immediately, and Harry edged inside wordlessly.</p><p>Ginny closed the door behind him with a small click. Her room was pitch black, and Harry could feel her breath on him. He also sensed something unexpected on her part: trepidation.</p><p>For once in her life, it seemed Ginny Weasley had lost her nerve. They stood together for a moment, listening to each other’s breathing. Harry had found his resolve on the way to Ginny’s bedroom, but if she’d decided she didn’t want to . . .</p><p>“Hey,” Harry breathed, barely audible. “We don’t have to do this. I can just go back upstairs. No one will—”</p><p>“Will you shut up?” Even in the dark, Harry could tell Ginny was smiling. “I was just enjoying being near you.”</p><p>Harry smiled back. His vision was adjusting to the darkness, and he could almost make out her outline. She’d taken down her ponytail and he thought he could see her eyes roving all over him.</p><p>“Just tell me when you’re done,” murmured Harry. He could smell her hair. The dragon that slept in his chest had roused awake.</p><p>Ginny stepped even closer, their bodies grazing one another. Her breath was shaky. She was silent another moment, and just when Harry didn’t think he could wait any longer, she whispered, “Okay. I’m done.”</p><p>Harry grabbed her. He pulled her mouth to his, kissing her in a way he’d never done before. Ginny seemed taken by surprise, but she quickly adapted, holding on to his neck. Harry pulled her leg around his waist, hardly aware of what he was doing. His hand raked over her thigh, her hip, her backside. He suddenly couldn’t get her close enough.</p><p>Ungracefully, he yanked her night shirt off, leaving her standing only in her underwear. Ginny pulled his pajama pants down, causing Harry to trip in his haste and throw a hand against the wall. She slid her palms up his legs and past his boxers, pulling his shirt off as she stood.</p><p>Hooking an arm around her waist, Harry pinned Ginny against a frayed Gwenog Jones poster.</p><p>He tasted her jaw, her ear lobe, the hair at the nape of her neck, until Ginny’s breath was ragged and shallow. Harry’s movements were senseless, instinctual. Her bare breasts against him were too much—his entire body was on fire.</p><p>Ginny’s knee found its way up Harry’s waist again and she started rocking her hips madly against his. Harry couldn’t keep himself from growling in his throat and Ginny had to shush him. Yet she didn’t seem too concerned with keeping him quiet, because at that moment a hand was in his boxers, exploring freely and liberally. Without thinking, Harry slammed a fist against the wall, a loud thud echoing throughout the entire Burrow. He and Ginny froze where they stood, listening for footsteps.</p><p>After a few seconds during which Harry was at Ginny’s complete mercy, she resumed her wanderings and neither of them could deny she was being wildly successful. She pulled the band of his boxers away from his arousal and down his legs, leaving him naked in front of her.</p><p>“What are you doing?” Harry whispered when she paused.</p><p>Ginny had a very odd expression on her face, her eyes glued to his hips. Her voice was thick, distant. “Just . . . memorizing.” She let out a shuddering breath. “You’re just as I imagined.”</p><p>“Don’t make me wait again,” Harry croaked.</p><p>She seemed to come back to herself. “I wouldn’t dare.”</p><p>Harry reached under Ginny’s backside and lifted her. She wrapped her legs around him and he stumbled backward to her bed until the bed frame hit the backs of his knees, forcing him to sit with Ginny in his lap.</p><p>This was a mistake—Ginny writhed where she sat, her hips cresting in circles and maddening thrusts as she kissed Harry’s ear. The dragon was roaring now.</p><p>“You’re going to have to stop that,” Harry groaned, barely able to breathe.</p><p>“I don’t think I can.”</p><p>With a hand on her lower back, Harry managed to slide Ginny off his lap and onto her back.</p><p>“My turn.” Harry straddled her, thinking it best to keep her pinned so she didn’t try anything funny.</p><p>His hands skimmed along her shoulders, ribs, hip bones. Ginny grabbed a fistful of sheets with one hand and had a white-knuckled grip on Harry’s knee with the other.</p><p>Deciding to take his time, Harry ran his fingers back up her arms, along her collarbones, and rubbed a thumb over her lips. She bit him. He felt a flash of pain then a fresh surge of want.</p><p>They locked eyes in the grayness, and Harry held her gaze as his explorations got braver. He cupped her breast, turning her nipple between his fingers. Ginny bucked him. He pressed his other hand instinctively to her inner thigh to stop her, her skin hot under his palm.</p><p>Still holding her stare, Harry rubbed his fingers down from her navel, past the elastic of her underwear, and between her legs. The dragon breathed fire at the radiating heat Harry found there.</p><p>She whispered his name and his body pulsed. The dim light through the curtains illuminated her pink face.</p><p>Harry eased the crotch of her underwear aside and sighed. Ginny was slippery and warm and Harry thought his chest was going to burst.</p><p>Quickly, Harry pulled her underwear off and opened her legs. She lay uninhibited and ready beneath him, her most intimate self lit by the moonlight. As he explored her folds with his fingers, listening to her heavy breathing, Harry found himself in a wandering maze in which he was completely lost, and yet he discovered wonder and delight around every corner, where all his senses were at once keenly aware and thickly drunk. He could lose himself in her warm body and wouldn’t mind one bit if he never resurfaced.</p><p>Ginny finally reached up and pulled Harry’s face to hers. She kissed him almost gently before Harry took one more glance down her body.</p><p>With a flip of his stomach, Harry positioned himself properly over Ginny. And in one fluid motion, in what felt like the most natural thing he had ever done, Harry grasped Ginny’s hand and slid himself inside her.</p><p>She let out a strangled moan and Harry stifled it with a kiss. He squeezed her hand as hard as he could as he thrust, over and over. The feeling was exhilarating, and the motions came to him naturally, instinctually—like riding a broomstick, but vastly magnified. Flying paled in comparison to this. Ginny was grinding against him again, and Harry had to find leverage by digging his toes into the mattress.</p><p>Their mouths broke apart as they gasped for air, writhing against each other. Harry hastily shoved his glasses back up his nose and Ginny ran her fingernails up his back, into his hair. Harry kissed and licked her ear. She emitted small noises, trying to stay quiet.</p><p>Harry didn’t think he was going to be able to exhibit that much control in a moment. His ears were screaming and his skin was throbbing with his pulse.</p><p>Soon his thrusts grew wilder and wilder, and he had to grab one of the rails of Ginny’s headboard. She panted in his ear, clenching herself around him, until the dragon suddenly exploded with almighty thunder.</p><p>“<em>Ginny</em>—”</p><p>Harry drove one final thrust deep into her, knowing he’d never experienced anything so sublime. Ginny let out a muffled squeak into his shoulder.</p><p>“Don’t stop, don’t—” Ginny scrambled for a grip on Harry’s hips.</p><p>“—Give me a sec—” Harry’s vision had almost blacked out and his skin was buzzing as he came down from his peak.</p><p>He reached up and shoved the curtains aside, washing Ginny in soft moonlight. He wanted to see her properly.</p><p>Still inside her, Harry reached a hand down her body. Their foreheads were touching as they held each other’s gaze. Ginny guided his fingers, showing him a particular movement.</p><p>“Gentler . . . Like this . . .”</p><p>Once he felt like he’d gotten the hang of it, Harry rolled off on his side, inadvertently slipping out of her, and hiked her leg over his hip. Ginny was pawing at him desperately, apparently frustrated he’d moved.</p><p>The shape of her was clear in the light. Harry reached underneath her raised leg, finding her at a whole new angle. Ginny moaned deep in her throat as Harry resumed the motions she’d showed him. She was impossibly slick now.</p><p>Ginny’s skin was hot—almost feverish—to Harry’s touch. Ginny had her fingers in Harry’s hair and gave satisfying tugs when Harry did something she particularly liked.</p><p>“Faster.”</p><p>Harry focused on his rhythm, tuned in to every twitch and small noise she made. But with a grin he couldn’t resist brushing her nipple with his other hand and giving it a small tug, making her whimper.</p><p>A minute later, the pink in Ginny’s face had deepened and spread to her neck and chest.</p><p>She let out a cry as her whole body convulsed. Harry rolled on top of her and covered her mouth with his free hand as she continued crying out.</p><p>“Shh—Ginny—!”</p><p>She bit his hand and bucked him once more before finally lying still beneath him.</p><p>Flushed and panting, Ginny grabbed Harry’s face and kissed him full on the mouth. When she was through, she held his face close to hers, studying him.</p><p>“I didn’t think it was possible,” Ginny panted, “but your hair is even messier than usual.”</p><p>“I blame you.”</p><p>“Rightfully so.” She ran her fingers through his hair, making it stand up on end.</p><p>The room seemed bright now in the moonlight. Harry took in her small wrists and her freckled knees and the dark red downy hair between her legs. Ginny solemnly fingered the oval-shaped scar through the black hairs over Harry’s heart, left by Slytherin’s locket after it had burned itself into his chest and Hermione had had to sever it away. Harry was struck with the realization that he had so much to tell Ginny, so much she didn’t know. For so long, his battle with Voldemort had been his stark reality, and a future with Ginny an unlikely dream. Now, here she lay, and his past seemed a distant nightmare. They lay looking at each other for some time.</p><p>Harry swallowed. “Sometimes I can’t believe you’re real.”</p><p>“That’s funny,” she said. “You’ve always been the realest thing to me.”</p><p>He took her hands in his. “Will you finally tell me what these are from?” he asked, rubbing his thumbs along the pink scars on her palms.</p><p>She closed her hands around his thumbs. “This is the happiest I’ve ever been. I’d rather not talk about that just now.”</p><p>It pained Harry not to know how she’d been hurt, but he understood well the need not to discuss it. He supposed some things would need a bit more time—for the both of them.</p><p>They drew each other close and Harry memorized her scent: the flowery smell of her hair that always made his stomach flip, the earthiness of her skin, the tang of her sweat. He felt at once so addicted to her; it would take several lifetimes of nights like this to satiate him.</p><p>Harry found himself not at all sleepy and eager to review what he’d learned about Ginny’s body. He held her jaw and kissed her, slowly, lingering, teasing. Their tongues met and an electric current ran through him.</p><p>He ventured between her legs again, but Ginny stopped him gently.</p><p>“Not yet,” she whispered.</p><p>Harry obeyed and moved his attentions to her neck.</p><p>“How exactly do you know so much about this?” he asked into her ear.</p><p>“I’ve had some practice.” Harry shot her a look, and Ginny smiled. “Alone.”</p><p>The electricity was practically humming now through Harry’s skin.</p><p>“Oh?”</p><p>Ginny nodded coyly.</p><p>Harry was shy to ask, but he really wanted to know. “And when do you have this practice?”</p><p>She was still smiling, now more mischievously. “I dunno. I figured it out early. And considering my crush all these years is a star Quidditch player and saved my life and has all this tousled hair and these <em>incredible </em>green eyes”—Harry’s ears reddened—“I do it whenever I can.”</p><p>Harry could tell she was teasing him a bit, but a flood of pleasure shot down through him regardless, at the thought of Ginny imagining him in her bed, even once. He kissed her again, messier, his fingers buried in her hair, their breath mingling together. Without warning, Ginny rolled on top of him and pinned him between her legs.</p><p>Her lips brushed over his chest, his stomach, the trail of hair below his navel. . . .</p><p>“And what about you?” she asked somewhere near his hips.</p><p>“Huh?” Harry mused thickly, finding conversation very difficult at the moment.</p><p>Mercifully, her kisses meandered back up toward his collarbone.</p><p>“Do you ever . . . think about me?” Her brazen eyes bore into his.</p><p>Blushing deeply again, Harry remembered his countless, very specific scenarios with Ginny while he lay in bed, pretending his hands were hers, unable to sleep for his want.</p><p>“Yes,” he breathed.</p><p>His answer had an immediate effect on Ginny. She began breathing heavily and looked down at him with what Harry could only interpret as hunger. She peered farther down Harry’s body where it was clear he wanted her too.</p><p>Sitting up, she pressed her hands into his chest and started rolling her hips over his lap. Harry let out a moan and self-consciously checked the door.</p><p>Ginny sent a hand between her legs and spread herself apart. She took Harry in her other hand and slid him back and forth between her lips. He closed his eyes, losing himself in the sensation.</p><p>It was all Harry could do to simply hold on as Ginny undulated. After a moment she leaned back, one hand on Harry’s shin and one holding him against her.</p><p>All of his senses were alive with Ginny’s presence. The moonlight cast her in full relief and Harry had a wonderful view of her writhing body, her face pink again with exertion. Watching her use him like that made Harry’s heartbeat thrum in his ears, the only thing he could hear besides their heavy breathing. There was a fourth scent about her now, something musty and sweet—Harry inhaled deeply. Ginny gave one particularly long roll of her hips and the sensation was so fantastic that Harry swore under his breath.</p><p>The air was thick and heady now and Harry was drunk with his desire. He sat up and pulled her face to his, tasting her tongue before she pushed him back down.</p><p>Ginny gradually sped up, her head thrown back, her long red hair tickling his legs.</p><p>Harry grabbed her hips, forcing her harder against him, and this did it—within seconds a shudder wracked Ginny’s whole body, and she ground on top of him uncontrollably, emitting soft, high-pitched moans.</p><p>When she was spent, she collapsed on top of him.</p><p>“I’ve been wanting to do that for a long time,” she said after a little while. “I’ve pictured it a thousand times.”</p><p>Harry swelled and guided her hand between his own legs. She gave him her sideways grin when she realized he was still slick from Ginny using him.</p><p>Harry watched her enthusiastic hand on him, better than anything he had ever imagined, and he felt himself quickly approaching oblivion. He passed his hands over Ginny’s body and as he reached for her chin she took his hand and put his fingers in her mouth.</p><p>“Fucking hell,” Harry managed as he spilled over, moaning and contorting his hips.</p><p>“Harry,” sighed Ginny, covering him with kisses.</p><p>“Sorry, I’ll clean it up—”</p><p>“Don’t you dare. I finally get you in my bed and you want to erase any proof you were here?” She took Harry’s glasses off and set them on the desk.</p><p>Harry enveloped Ginny in his arms, sleepiness taking over him. He took in the scent of her hair once more, dozed off, and woke again, unsure if he’d been asleep for a second or an hour. While he still had years’ worth of things to tell her, there suddenly seemed to exist all the time in the world in which to say them, and just then he preferred to listen to the miracle of their twin breathing.</p><p> </p><p> </p><p>Before dawn, Harry snuck back upstairs and fell asleep in Ron’s bed for a couple hours.</p><p>He woke again to the sun shining through the curtains and the sound of Mrs. Weasley bustling around in the kitchen.</p><p>“Good morning, Harry!” said Mr. Weasley brightly over his copy of the <em>Daily Prophet</em> as Harry came down, hair unkempt. “How’d you sleep?”</p><p>“I was—no—”</p><p>“Sorry?”</p><p>“Fine. I slept fine.”</p><p>Ginny raised her eyebrows at Harry from behind her mother.</p><p>Mrs. Weasley set a large bowl of porridge and a plate of bacon on the table with a heavy sigh, then left the kitchen.</p><p>“This is a sad day for your mother,” Mr. Weasley said quietly to Ginny. “It’s the last time she’ll take a child to King’s Cross.”</p><p>“The house will be empty now,” Mrs. Weasley lamented as she came back into the kitchen with fresh cloth napkins. Harry did think the large table looked rather lonely with only the four of them.</p><p>“Most of us are coming back for the holidays, Mum,” Ginny said as she sat down.</p><p>“You’re just all grown up, in so many ways. Look at you! So beautiful and smart and strong.” She stroked Ginny’s chin, marveling at her daughter. Then she looked right at Harry. “All I can hope for now is grandchildren.” Harry choked on his orange juice.</p><p>“Harry, I’m sure you’ll be sad to see Ginny go, too,” said Mr. Weasley, clapping him on the back as he tried to stop coughing.</p><p>“He’s going to visit me in Hogsmeade,” said Ginny, hiding her grin behind her own orange juice.</p><p>“Well, that’ll be nice,” said Mr. Weasley pleasantly.</p><p>Harry gave an awkward smile.</p><p>“It seems only yesterday you were in this kitchen for the first time, Harry, after Ron, Fred, and George had brought you here in my Ford Anglia, and Ginny came in and saw you and ran right back out like you were a vampire or something.”</p><p>“Dad,” warned Ginny, no longer smiling.</p><p>Mr. Weasley shot her a teasing look.</p><p>“But now look at you! Sitting in the same room as Harry, speaking normally, not shy at all.”</p><p>“Very funny, Dad.”</p><p>“Your father and I couldn’t be happier about this match,” beamed Mrs. Weasley as she sat at the table, sliding the porridge to Harry.</p><p>Mr. Weasley nodded as Harry reached for the dish. “Yes, and it appears you two have really made the most of your summer together.” Harry knocked the porridge bowl against the juice pitcher with a loud clatter.</p><p>“You all right, Harry?” Ginny asked, a glint in her eye.</p><p>“Yes, thank you,” said Harry, putting his elbow in the porridge.</p><p>After breakfast, when Harry had recovered from a bit of his awkwardness, the four of them traveled to the train station. Since Ginny was of age now, they were able to Apparate to an alley outside King’s Cross and walk right in with Ginny’s trunk and Arnold perched on her shoulder.</p><p>For the first time, Harry and Ginny went though the divider between Platforms Nine and Ten together. Mr. and Mrs. Weasley were right behind them.</p><p>“Have a wonderful term, Ginny.” Mr. Weasley hugged his daughter and passed her to his wife.</p><p>“Please don’t cry, Mum.”</p><p>Mrs. Weasley cradled Ginny’s face in her hands and smiled at her. Harry thought he saw a knowing look in her eye. “You’re my pride and joy, you know that?”</p><p>“Don’t tell your sons.”</p><p>Mrs. Weasley hugged Ginny firmly and kissed her on both cheeks.</p><p>Mr. and Mrs. Weasley stayed back as Harry helped Ginny carry her trunk onto the train.</p><p>“It’s Harry Potter!”</p><p>“Harry!”</p><p>People whispered and craned their heads into the corridor as Harry and Ginny passed. Most seemed happy and amazed to see him, but a few sneered as he passed.</p><p>“Potter!” called an older Slytherin. “Is it true? Did you and your little girlfriend actually make up the whole Chamber of Secrets story, pretending to save her life, so you could look the hero?”</p><p>Ginny pulled Harry along the train and found an empty compartment toward the back, and Harry loaded her trunk into the luggage rack.</p><p>“Don’t listen to them,” Ginny whispered.</p><p>The compartment of Slytherins was still at it when Harry and Ginny walked past again.</p><p>“My older brother said Potter attacked Justin Finch-Fletchley that year. Probably because Justin found out it was all a hoax.”</p><p>“He doesn’t deserve that Order of Merlin.”</p><p>“Has anyone ever tried rubbing that scar off? I bet it’s fake.”</p><p>They left the train again to more excited voices on the platform.</p><p>“Harry Potter!”</p><p>“Hi, Harry!”</p><p>“Harry, will you sign my book?” asked a small girl, holding a copy of <em>Harry Potter: Hero or Ham?</em></p><p>“There’s Hermione,” said Ginny, relieved.</p><p>Ron and Hermione stood together nearby on the platform. Ron was sunburned and Hermione was very brown.</p><p>“How was Australia?” Harry asked.</p><p>“Wonderful!” said Hermione. “We toured all these museums and learned so much about the indigenous populations there before the colonists arrived. The country has such a rich history!”</p><p>“They have spiders bigger than my head there,” said Ron, who seemed to turn green at the memory. “But other than that it was great.”</p><p>“Harry, what’s all this about a book about you?” asked Hermione.</p><p>“Rita Skeeter’s written a tell-all about Harry,” said Ginny, rolling her eyes. “Everyone and their great aunt’s read it.”</p><p>“You should’ve left her as a beetle, Hermione,” said Ron darkly.</p><p>The train whistled.</p><p>“Well, bye then!” Hermione hugged Harry tightly. “Don’t fret about it, Harry. People will forget about it in no time.” Harry hugged her back, but he doubted whether she was right this time.</p><p>They all said their goodbyes, and then Ron kissed Hermione so suddenly and passionately that several onlookers whistled. Harry and Ginny shared a grin then quickly had to look away from each other. Ron released Hermione and she stumbled onto the train, blushing deeply.</p><p>“See ya back at the Burrow, Harry,” gushed Ron, who was now a deep purple, and he left to find his parents.</p><p>“This is it,” said Ginny once they were alone again. “At least for now.”</p><p>Harry pulled something out of the breast pocket of his jacket.</p><p>“I decided I did want you to have this. In case it ends up <em>not </em>being a normal year at Hogwarts.”</p><p>Harry held out the Marauder’s Map.</p><p>“Just say, ‘I solemnly swear that I am up to no good’ when you want to use it, and ‘Mischief managed’ when you’re through.”</p><p>Ginny took it gingerly.</p><p>“Are you sure?”</p><p>“Definitely. Just—try to only use it for emergencies.”</p><p>“I will.”</p><p>“And pick the people <em>you </em>want to pick on the Quidditch team. Don’t worry about what other people say.”</p><p>“I will.”</p><p>“And stay out of trouble.”</p><p>“I can’t promise that.” Ginny grabbed the front of Harry’s shirt and pulled him to her. “D’you reckon people will riot if I snog you?”</p><p>Instead of answering, Harry took her jaw in his hands and kissed her. Dozens of onlookers whooped and hollered, but Harry didn’t care; he worried he wouldn’t be able to get enough of her to last him until he saw her again. She perhaps felt the same way, as she wrapped her arms around his waist and pulled him closer, to increased wolf whistles.</p><p>“I’ll see you in just a couple months,” Harry said against her lips.</p><p>“Write to me,” she said as the train whistled again.</p><p>“I will.”</p><p>“A lot.”</p><p>“I will.”</p><p>“And <em>you </em>stay out of trouble.”</p><p>Harry smiled as steam began pouring from the train. “I can’t promise that, either.”</p><p>“Something for us both to work on.”</p><p>She kissed him again and Harry pressed her into him. Seconds later, the train started hissing with steam. Ginny stepped away, but their lips remained together for as long as they could. All along the train compartment doors were closing, and Ginny finally parted from him, looking over her shoulder.</p><p>Harry watched as she boarded the train. First-years were half-hanging out of their windows, waving and calling excitedly to their families, who waved and called back. Ginny opened her own window and locked her eyes on Harry’s as the train began moving, but neither of them waved.</p><p>The image of her red hair billowing in the wind as the train picked up speed disappeared behind a wall of steam, and any final goodbyes by the passengers were drowned by the screaming engine and hissing steam as their vessel rounded a corner and churned out of sight.</p>
  </div></div>
<a name="section0003"><h2>3. A Witch and Wizard in Plymouth</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Summary for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
            <p>Harry buys a cottage in a wizarding neighborhood and he and Ginny go on a Muggle date.</p>
          </blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>For the next several weeks, Harry was very busy. In addition to Auror training, he looked at a number of flats outside London but quickly realized he wasn’t interested in living among Muggles again and being the only wizard for miles around. He’d done that growing up, and it had been very lonely. Harry then shopped in neighborhoods where pockets of witches and wizards lived, and there were several viable choices in Chudleigh, Puddlemere, and Wimbourne.</p><p>But then, Mr. Weasley said he’d found a house from an ad at the Ministry, outside Plymouth in a small wizarding community called Claret Rock. It was only an hour away from the Burrow.</p><p>Mr. Weasley and Harry visited the property. It was a stone cottage covered in ivy. Large hedges enveloped and protected the house from the others next to it and a low stone wall separated the street from the yard, its overgrown garden, and a bright red door. The house next door had a strange-looking wind chime in the front yard that chirped the weather forecast at Harry and Mr. Weasley as they walked by (“Clear with a chance of showers this evening!”), and the cottage across the street had a small rack of children’s broomsticks on the front porch. Most importantly, no one had harassed him yet, asking him whether his dad had really been a drunk or whether Harry was really a womanizer.</p><p>A wizard in cerulean robes passed them on the sidewalk and wished them good morning, not even seeming to register who Harry was.</p><p>Harry bought the cottage on the spot.</p><p>It was a quiet neighborhood and no one made a fuss that Harry Potter was their new neighbor. He spent the next several days moving in his few belongings and shopping for furniture. There was a magical antique shop nearby where Harry found a grandfather clock that handed out peppermints and advice when you asked for them, and an enchanted armchair that claimed it would keep its shape no matter how much you sat on it.</p><p>And Harry allowed himself a few Muggle conveniences; he spent an entire day in the neighboring city of Plymouth, walking anonymously among Muggles and enjoying the view of the water, and bought himself a television, a telephone, and, in a moment of spontaneity, a Playstation.</p><p>After the battle, Harry hadn’t found it in himself to get a new owl; he knew it was irrational, but it would be like he was replacing a family member, and he just wasn’t ready. But there was a small owl post office in Claret Rock and Harry could use any of the owls there to write to Ginny. She had already written to say she had picked the rest of the players for the Quidditch team and Professor Flitwick was giving her extra credit work to do since she was progressing so quickly in his class. She’d already gotten the hang of every nonverbal spell they threw at her, which Harry himself had only just mastered during Auror training. On the downside, she wasn’t seeing much of Hermione since she had to study so much. Ginny said Hermione practically lived in the library.</p><p>By October, Harry was all moved in and had more time to focus on training. He and Ron had progressed to the Stealth and Tracking course. Yet just when Harry thought Auror Robards was warming up to him, Skeeter’s book had come out and seemed to confirm Robards’s suspicions that Harry was just in training to look cool or something.</p><p>On the bright side, he and Ron had made two friends during training, and they were among the strongest trainees. One, named Cypress, was a heavily tattooed young man who had always greeted Harry in the hallways and had a remarkable memory for antidotes. Another, Sylvia, had a shock of lime green hair and was so good at sneaking up on others that she’d earned the nickname Sly. Ron had a keen eye for noticing things no one else in the room had seen; for example, they had been studying a case of a murdered woman where her attacker had escaped through unknown means, and Ron was the only one to notice in photos that the dish of Floo Powder in her living room had been disturbed. Robards had even given him a “well done.” Ron’s ears had gone pink with pleasure. And all the while, Harry worked harder than ever to prove Robards wrong, reading ahead in his books, taking diligent notes, mastering spells and maneuvers in the evenings, and keeping up with his fitness on the weekends. He jumped over every hurdle Robards threw his way (sometimes literally, when they were in the physical portion of class).</p><p>Harry’s efforts certainly didn’t go unnoticed by Ron, who did not feel the same pull to prove himself.</p><p>“I don’t even recognize you anymore,” said Ron jokingly one night at Harry’s cottage when he spotted Harry in the kitchen, books and parchment sprawled across the table, Harry’s head bent over in concentration.</p><p>Ron often came to Harry’s new place after training so they could study together (Ron was still living at the Burrow, trying to save money). During study breaks, Harry taught him how to play video games and Ron played for hours, often when Harry had gone back to studying or practicing.</p><p>Harry felt very much at home in his new cottage. He’d never had a proper place to call his own, and while Hogwarts and the Burrow would always be special to him, this was a place Harry had created himself. He had the <em>Daily Prophet </em>delivered to him every morning, all of his old textbooks sat in the bookshelves by the fireplace (which he’d registered on the Floo Network), and the framed photo of his parents Hagrid had given him sat on the mantel.</p><p>Perhaps it was the years of being crammed under the stairs, but Harry found himself playing music as loud as it would go on the radio, making a huge mess in the kitchen learning how to cook, and falling asleep on the couch with the news on, his assigned book on wizarding hunting skills having slipped to the floor.</p><p>Ginny encouraged Harry to place a few protective charms around his house. They were in peaceful times to be sure, but there were still Dark Wizards and Death Eaters roaming around. Harry cast <em>Protego Totalum </em>he’d learned well from Hermione, an anti-intruder charm he’d learned in Auror training, and a Muggle-repellant charm Ginny wrote instructions for in a letter, for good measure.</p><p>The only unpleasant thing in Harry’s house was a frequent column by Rita Skeeter in the<em> Daily Prophet</em>. As if she hadn’t already done enough damage, she’d taken to writing a gossip column exclusively about Harry. It seemed she was determined to prove to any lingering naysayers that he was in fact the horrid, self-centered show-off she’d depicted in her book. Harry made a point to avoid reading her columns as he perused the rest of the paper, but sometimes the headlines were so ostentatious that Harry couldn’t stop himself from reading, just to see how she spun facts into such wild fiction:</p><p>
  <b> <em>HARRY POTTER RESOLVED TO TAKE ON HAUNTED, DANGEROUS VILLAGE</em> </b>
</p><p>
  <em>It seems that Harry Potter has not yet had enough adventure in his life and is still desperate to prove what a brave hero he is. He was recently spotted moving into a shabby cottage in a small wizarding village outside Plymouth, a historic Muggle port city in the southwest. Harry must have known the city’s sinister past and current perils when he purchased a home there—how irresponsible would a new homeowner have to be, not to look into these things first?</em>
</p><p>
  <em>The Muggles who live there have their own tragic history to tell—bombings and world wars and all manners of ghosts—in addition to a litany of strange occurrences none of them seem able to explain properly, owing to the fact that the incidences are magical in nature.</em>
</p><p>
  <em>They speak of a strange, four-legged beast with a blood-curdling howl and glowing eyes living in the vast forest north of Plymouth. They dubbed it the Devil of Dartmoor. Of course, we easily identify such a creature as the highly dangerous werewolf.</em>
</p><p>
  <em>Harry Potter is a known associate to werewolves, in particular one Remus Lupin, who was foolishly employed by late headmaster Albus Dumbledore to teach at Hogwarts. His tenure lasted only one year, however, after Lupin recklessly endangered his students with his horrible condition.</em>
</p><p>
  <em>Does Harry believe he can vanquish the so-called Devil of Dartmoor? Or does he wish to befriend it, as he did his former teacher? Both are acts of great hubris only dreamed of by such an ego as Harry Potter.</em>
</p><p>
  <em>And that’s not all; Plymouth Muggles also talk of the Hairy Hands of Dartmoor. They claim giant hairy hands have appeared out of nowhere and grabbed at steering wheels and handlebars (the things that control Muggle cars and bicycles), forcing innocent drivers off the road and plummeting to their deaths.</em>
</p><p>
  <em>These “hairy hands” are likely owned by a forest troll who has taken up residence in Dartmoor and does not wish to be disturbed by noisy, late-night drivers.</em>
</p><p>
  <em>Incidentally, Harry Potter took it upon himself to take down a fully-grown mountain troll in his very first year at Hogwarts. He believed himself capable of such a task after learning about them in class and only barely managed to escape the event with his life. Yet instead of coming to appreciate the extreme danger that trolls pose, Harry was clearly emboldened by his youthful indiscretion and has moved somewhere that promises a future encounter with the treacherous beast.</em>
</p><p>
  <em>One day, Harry may bite off more than he can chew, and we will merely wonder if he knew he deserved it.</em>
</p><p>Indeed, Harry did not make a habit of reading her articles.</p><p>Occasionally, Harry visited Tonks’s mother, Andromeda, and Tonks and Lupin’s son, Teddy. Harry knew nothing about babies, but he enjoyed visiting his godson, whom he always brought small gifts. Andromeda was always pleased to see him, and often their visits consisted of Harry filling Andromeda in on his recent activities over a cup of tea and Andromeda showing him baby photographs of Tonks while Teddy played happily on the rug.</p><p>On Halloween, Harry enchanted paper bats to fly around his chimney and gave out extra-large Chocolate Frogs and Pepper Imps to the children in the neighborhood.</p><p>“You look just like Harry Potter!” squeaked a little girl dressed as Gwendolyn Morgan, a former captain of the Holyhead Harpies Quidditch team.</p><p>“He’s got the scar and everything!” said her brother whom Harry suspected was a Venomous Tentacula. Their mother gaped at him, blinked, then smiled.</p><p>“Say thank you, kids.”</p><p>“Thank you!”</p><p>“Thank you,” said the mother, with an earnestness Harry could only assume was about much more than the candy.</p><p>Finally, in mid-November, it was time to visit Ginny at Hogsmeade. Harry took Floo Powder to the Hog’s Head Inn in the village.</p><p>“All right, Harry?” called Aberforth as Harry climbed out of the fireplace and dusted himself off.</p><p>Hogsmeade was back to its lively self after the Carrows and other Death Eaters had ravaged it. A few shops had already decorated for Christmas with lights, wreaths, and mistletoe. A light snow was falling and students bustled around, darting from shop to shop. Harry passed Dervish and Banges and Spintwitches Sporting Needs where he spotted a newer model of the Broomstick Servicing Kit Hermione had given him years ago. He was inspecting it when someone called his name.</p><p>“Harry! Harry!”</p><p>He turned, and a girl with flaming red hair was waving at him from down the street—Ginny broke free from her large group of friends and ran to Harry, almost knocking him over. Harry caught her just as she slipped on some ice. She looked great; she was wearing a royal blue sweater under her coat and her cheeks were rosy from the chilly air.</p><p>The girls trailed after Ginny, and Harry spotted Bridget and Luna among them.</p><p>“Hi, Luna, good to see you.” Harry hugged her. “<em>The Quibbler </em>still going strong?”</p><p>“Oh, yes,” she beamed. “We have a feature this month on Flarglemonks.”</p><p>“On what?”</p><p>“Giant invisible elephant-like creatures that creep into your home when you’re avoiding something and they sit in the corner until you face it.”</p><p>“Ah, of course.”</p><p>Ginny was full to bursting at Harry’s side, eager to introduce him to her friends. None of them seemed to have read Harry’s biography, or if they had, they were tactfully not mentioning it.</p><p>“Harry, you remember Bridget and Isabelle, and this is Delia and Sal and Tanith”—each girl giggled or waved shyly as Harry nodded at them—“and <em>this</em> is Calliope Burnham. She’s our new Seeker!” Harry shook the hand of a tall black girl with a mass of curly hair arranged in a poufy bun on the top of her head.</p><p>“I couldn’t ever hope to fill your shoes,” she said, squeezing his hand, “but I’m having bloody good fun!”</p><p>“If you impressed Ginny, then I’m sure we’re in good hands.”</p><p>Ginny waved at her friends. “I’ll see you all back at the school!” They each dissolved into giggles as Ginny and Harry walked away.</p><p>“Where shall we go first?” Harry asked merrily.</p><p>“Want a Butterbeer?”</p><p>“Great idea.” They walked to the Three Broomsticks and a wall of warmth hit them as they opened the doors.</p><p>“Wow—it’s busy.”</p><p>Half the students visiting Hogsmeade seemed to be crammed into the pub, and Harry and Ginny were only able to find a spot at the end of the bar, next to two very grumpy-looking goblins. Harry began to order two Butterbeers from Madam Rosmerta.</p><p>“Oh, Harry!” cried Madam Rosmerta loudly, wiping her hands on her apron. Several people looked over. To Harry’s horror, Madam Rosmerta then shouted, “Harry Potter, everyone!”</p><p>Every creature in the pub reacted: most of them cheered, shouted, or growled happily, depending on their species, but several others glared at Harry like he was something nasty under their shoes. Harry disliked both forms of attention equally and buried his face in his menu before Madam Rosmerta rounded on him again.</p><p>“How have you been?”</p><p>“Fine, thanks. You?”</p><p>“Just fine, now all that nasty Death Eater business is over with. Thanks to you! I was so sorry to read in your book that your parents had such a terrible gambling problem. I had no idea. Drinks on the house!” Then she turned on the spot and began pouring Butterbeers.</p><p>“Hi, Ginny!” called a girl from the table behind them. She had thick brown braids and Harry assumed she was a Hufflepuff with her yellow scarf. She was bright and friendly with Ginny, then turned shy when she spotted Harry. “Oh—hi.”</p><p>“Emmelda, this is Harry, Harry, this is Emmelda,” said Ginny. “We keep each other sane in double Charms.”</p><p>“Nice to meet you,” Harry said pleasantly.</p><p>“Ginny’s a whiz in Charms class!” burst Emmelda, recovering from her shyness.</p><p>“So I hear,” said Harry, smiling.</p><p>Madam Rosmerta set two Butterbeers in front of them and Harry took a big gulp.</p><p>“You’re very popular,” he said in Ginny’s ear once Emmelda had turned back to her own table. “I had no idea you had so many friends from other Houses.”</p><p>Ginny smiled, looking around the pub. “You’re pretty popular, too.”</p><p>Witches and wizards were staring at the two of them unabashedly, smiling and waving when Harry caught their eye. Harry and Ginny finished their drinks as fast as they could and left, reentering the chill of the cobblestoned street.</p><p>“Hiya, Ginny!” said a slender boy with mousy brown hair once they were outside. “Oh—hi, Harry! Wow!”</p><p>“Hi, Dennis,” said Ginny. It took Harry a second to realize who the boy was: Dennis Creevey. He looked more like his brother now, Colin.</p><p>“Dennis, hi! How are you?”</p><p>“Fine. Mum and Dad are still a wreck. They don’t really understand what Colin’s sacrifice meant, you know?”</p><p>Harry shuffled awkwardly, remembering how Colin had died in the Battle of Hogwarts. “Yeah. I’m so sorry.”</p><p>“He admired you so much,” said Dennis, and there was fire in his eyes belying his size. “I’m sure he wouldn’t have changed a thing.”</p><p>As Harry and Ginny walked on, they seemed unable to find a quiet spot in the entire village where they could be alone; Ginny ran into her original pack of inter-House friends in Gladrags Wizardwear, where Bridget wanted Ginny to try on a pair of singing mittens, and Harry was bombarded by a group of third-year Gryffindor boys sucking on Acid Pops in Honeydukes who wanted his autograph. One held a copy of <em>Harry Potter: Hero or Ham? </em>and one carried an issue of the <em>Daily Prophet</em> with a photo of Harry, Ron, and Hermione on the front page, wearing their Order of Merlin medals.</p><p>“Do you have your medal with you, Harry?”</p><p>“Did you hear they’re making a Chocolate Frog card of you, Harry?”</p><p>“Harry! Will you sign my forehead?”</p><p>As Harry disentangled himself from the Gryffindor boys, their mouths starting to smoke from the Acid Pops, he spotted Ginny across the shop talking very cozily with a handsome, burly bloke in a Ravenclaw scarf. Harry watched them from behind a display of Bertie Bott’s Every Flavor Beans.</p><p>The boy was leaning into Ginny’s space with his head tilted, his eyes roaming all over Ginny. He seemed to be puffing his chest out and doing an odd puckering motion with his lips as he waggled his eyebrows; Harry took him to be a right cocky git.</p><p>Just as Harry thought about intervening, Ginny surreptitiously slipped her wand out of her sleeve and next second the boy was holding his nose and thick yellow pus was spurting out from between his fingers. He fell back into the Exploding Bonbons and Ginny leapt out from under his arm in the ensuing explosions and panic.</p><p>“Who was that?” Harry asked loudly over the racket when she’d found him again.</p><p>“Robert Alvis. Head Boy from Ravenclaw. He . . . he asked me out a while back, and he apparently didn’t get the message when I told him no.”</p><p>“Well, I think he’s got the message now.” They ducked out of Honeyduke’s as the Gryffindor boys slipped and fell in a large puddle of Robert’s pus.</p><p>They tried Zonko’s Joke Shop next, but were met with immediate squealing by a throng of nearby girls the second Harry stepped inside.</p><p>“We might have to hide in Madam Puddifoot’s,” joked Ginny. Madam Puddifoot’s Tea Shop, the very frilly and cherubic shop mostly kept in business by young couples who wanted to snog over a cup of Earl Grey, had provided Harry with unpleasant memories, and Ginny knew it.</p><p>“I’d rather go to the Shrieking Shack.”</p><p>They stood hopelessly in the street outside Tomes and Scrolls where several students were already peeking at them through floating stacks of books in the front window. Harry noticed one of the books was his biography, which now sported a golden “Bestseller!” ribbon.</p><p>Harry was struck with an idea. “I know where we can go.”</p><p>Harry took her hand and walked her back to the Hog’s Head Inn where a hag sat drinking in the corner. He grabbed a fistful of Floo Powder and took Ginny into the fireplace with him.</p><p>“Hold on tight. <em>Claret Rock!</em>”</p><p>In a flash of green flames, the two of them stumbled out of a fireplace in Claret Rock’s local pub. It hosted a small crowd of witches and wizards, and no one noticed their entrance; Harry had come to realize appearing out of thin air inside a fireplace in a wizarding community was about as exciting as someone walking through the front door. It rarely warranted anyone’s attention.</p><p>They stepped outside, and Harry took Ginny’s hand’s again. They Disapparated, and instantly found themselves crammed inside a phone booth. They extricated themselves and spilled onto an ordinary, deserted street. A small movie rental store with blinking lightbulbs all around the windows stood behind them and across the street was a used tire shop with an ancient orange pick-up truck in the driveway.</p><p>“Ooh, is this a <em>Muggle</em> town?”</p><p>“Yeah, this is Plymouth. It’s near where I live.”</p><p>They walked a few blocks toward the water and found crowds of Muggles enjoying early holiday shopping, drinking coffee, and taking pictures on the pier.</p><p>“I’ve never been in a Muggle town before.” Ginny looked around at all the shops and restaurants in the port city. She admired the cinema, the music shop featuring electric guitars, and a storefront full of knick knacks from sunglasses to plastic Christmas ornaments, with the same wonder Harry'd had when he’d first stepped into Diagon Alley. They passed a boutique jewelry store and Ginny spent several minutes looking in on a silver necklace with a minuscule horse charm. The bookstore was graciously bereft of any Harry Potter biographies.</p><p>They blended into the crowd and Harry relaxed finally, knowing he and Ginny could wander the streets as long as they liked and no one would bother them. Ginny wanted to go into one of the art galleries, and she was intrigued by how the paintings and photos didn’t move.</p><p>“So she just looks like that all the time?” she asked, inspecting a painting of a young girl swinging on a swing under a tree, her flowing hair frozen behind her.</p><p>“Yep. If you want to see pictures move, you’ll have to catch a movie.”</p><p>“How do those work?”</p><p>“It’s recorded on this stuff called film and then projected onto a big screen.”</p><p>“<em>Weird.</em>”</p><p>Next, they ducked into a high-end chocolatier.</p><p>“Merlin’s kneecaps, this is good chocolate.” Ginny savored several pieces of a dark chocolate bar with salted caramel. The shop owner blinked, bewildered, at Ginny. Harry had to pull her away from the sample platter after she picked up two more handfuls.</p><p>“You know,” she continued, her mouth thick with chocolate, “I fink Muggle chocolate is better ’cause it’s not befuddled wif all these enchantments—oops, sorry—” (she had spat bits of chocolate on Harry’s shirt) “—to make it explode or croak like a frog or turn your ears green.”</p><p>The shop owner gaped at the two of them, flabbergasted, and Harry dragged Ginny out of the shop, silently apologizing to the owner.</p><p>“You might want to keep your Muggle comments to yourself,” muttered Harry once they were back in the street, but he couldn’t help smiling at her.</p><p>“Oh, right,” said Ginny sheepishly.</p><p>“You have some chocolate on your chin.” Harry tried to wipe it off, but he only smeared it. Ginny’s face was flushed, either from embarrassment or eating half a pound of chocolate in two minutes, Harry wasn’t sure. But her freckles shown through the pink, and a thought came unbidden to Harry of how those freckles continued everywhere—</p><p>Ginny cleared her throat shyly and wiped away the rest of the chocolate.</p><p>“Erm . . . care for some dinner?” Harry asked.</p><p>After a short walk, they found a historic-looking restaurant that overlooked the water and managed to be seated at a table in a far corner away from other diners. Harry suspected the waiter seated them there after Ginny began commenting loudly on the telephone behind the hostess counter.</p><p>They shared a bottle of sparkling water, dived scallops, fillet of beef with mushrooms and shallots, and rhubarb crème brûlée. Harry paid with Muggle money he’d had transferred at Gringotts after he’d moved, and Ginny handled each piece, fascinated by the shapes and markings.</p><p>After dinner, Harry and Ginny took a walk around the Barbican, a historic section of the city Harry had grown fond of with cobbled streets, narrow lanes, and an eclectic array of boutiques, pubs, and restaurants set against the idyllic view of the water. The sky was streaked with pinks and purples as they walked, lost among the crowd of other couples holding hands, taking photos, and dipping in and out of shops.</p><p>Harry and Ginny talked about everything, from Ginny’s classes and Harry’s training to memories they shared from Hogwarts and moments they’d experienced alone.</p><p>“What was your Muggle town like, Harry?”</p><p>Harry laughed darkly. “Nothing like this. Although, to be fair to Surrey, it might have been interesting—but I was never able to see much of it.”</p><p>Ginny squeezed his hand. “I wish I could’ve known you then.”</p><p>“You do?” Harry scoffed. “I was an underfed nobody my aunt and uncle treated like an old mop.”</p><p>But she looked up at him in earnest. “I wish I could’ve known you then.”</p><p>Harry thought back to those long years in the cupboard under the stairs, with no dream of escape to a better life. If he had known then that this red-haired girl existed somewhere, small and mischievous, stealing her brothers’ broomsticks to practice Quidditch in the orchard . . .</p><p>“Would you like to see my new place?”</p><p>“Yes.”</p><p>They found a secluded spot behind a dumpster and Disapparated again, appearing at the stone wall in front of Harry’s cottage. Harry unlatched the door to the fence and walked Ginny to the door.</p><p>“You have a <em>garden</em>?”</p><p>“Well, I think the people before me planted it. Although I’ve thought about growing vegetables.”</p><p>Harry unlocked the red front door with his brass key.</p><p>They hung their coats on the rack, and Ginny walked through the house in wonderment, taking in the pots and pans in the sink (“You <em>cook</em>?”), the grandfather clock in the hall with its strangely human-like face, and the TV and Playstation in the living room. Harry couldn’t take his eyes off Ginny as she paced the floors, looking around. The cottage had become his home, and Ginny was still so new to him, that it was strangely thrilling to see her in his kitchen. She seemed at once out of place and perfectly at home. She walked upstairs and Harry followed her, remembering with a lurch of his stomach that he’d forgotten to tidy his room—he had a bad habit of leaving socks and underwear where they fell and keeping dishes from late-night snacks on the small desk by the window.</p><p>But Ginny wandered through the upstairs only seeming to take in those details which pleased Harry. Whether she didn’t notice his mess or didn’t care, Harry didn’t know.</p><p>“Did you pick out this desk? I love it!—Oh, you have a great view of the river. Is this south-facing? That’s supposed to be good luck.”</p><p>They made their way back downstairs.</p><p>“I think Dad has one of these,” Ginny said, peering at the TV buttons in the living room. “Is this how you can play movers?”</p><p>“<em>Movies</em>. And yes.”</p><p>“What’s this?”</p><p>“It plays video games. They’re like chess or Gobstones, but you play them on the screen.”</p><p>Ginny sat on the couch. “Will you show me Muggle tellyvision?”</p><p>Harry joined her, shoving aside a crumbled copy of the <em>Daily Prophet</em>, where Rita Skeeter’s headline glared up at him: “<em>HARRY POTTER BIG BRAGGADOCIO AT AUROR TRAINING—SURPRISING NO ONE</em>.” He flipped through the local news, some crime drama, and the home shopping network. But Ginny was most captivated by an infomercial selling a state-of-the-art cat litter scooper.</p><p>As Ginny watched TV, Harry watched Ginny. Her face was lit up by the blue light of the infomercial, and she laughed when they brought a very fat cat on to help with the demo.</p><p>When the infomercial turned to some dreadful-looking device called a Pooter Potty, Ginny finally spotted Harry watching her.</p><p>“What?” she asked self-consciously.</p><p>“Nothing.” Harry grinned.</p><p>They both hesitated for a moment, regarding each other. This was the first time they’d ever truly been alone together. Without warning, Harry was visited by a brief vision of a future, of the two of them living together, here, and he felt a glowing warmth in his belly like he’d just drunk a whole flagon of Butterbeer.</p><p>Almost as if she’d had the same vision, Ginny abandoned the television and, tucking her ankles underneath her, turned her attention to Harry.</p><p>“Your hair’s getting long,” she said quietly, reaching for him. Harry leaned in, suddenly aching for her. He pushed her back onto the couch, lifting her sweater up, tugging at her bra, just as a loud gonging came from the grandfather clock by the front door.</p><p>“What time is it?” Ginny asked, alarmed. Harry looked at his watch.</p><p>“Eight o’clock, poppet,” croaked the grandfather clock.</p><p>“I need to go!” To Harry’s dismay, Ginny leapt from the couch and snatched her coat from the rack. “If I’m not back <em>right now </em>Filch will have my head. He’s been on my back ever since my Bat-Bogie Hex on Robert Alvis backfired and ricocheted off all his friends in the Great Hall and the whole Hall had to be evacuated because hundreds of bats started flying around and dropping bogies on everyone. Filch was scraping dried mucus off the floor for days.”</p><p>“Are you <em>sure </em>that Alvis guy is a Ravenclaw?” Harry asked, still on the couch.</p><p>“<em>Harry!</em>”</p><p>“Okay, okay.” Harry grabbed a handful of Floo Powder and they crouched in his fireplace and in a flash of green flames they were back inside the Hog’s Head. They stepped out into the shadowy street.</p><p>Ginny made to tear away from Harry but thought better of it almost instantly; she whirled back around and slammed a kiss on Harry’s mouth, knocking him backwards. Before he could reach for her, she was running up the dark cobblestoned street toward the castle in the distance.</p>
  </div></div>
<a name="section0004"><h2>4. Exceedingly Extendable Ears</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Summary for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
            <p>Harry and Ginny begin to talk about their traumatic pasts together late at night, and Bill and Fleur have big news over Christmas break.</p>
          </blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>About a week later, Harry awoke from a nightmare, his first one in months. It was thundering and lightning outside and rain hit Harry’s window in sheets. He sat up in bed, sweating, trying to remember every detail of his dream while simultaneously trying to understand why he’d had it in the first place.</p><p>Maybe it was the fact that he knew he wasn’t going to see Ginny for several more weeks. Maybe it was that Harry hadn’t quite gotten used to the idea that Hogwarts was safe again.</p><p>But whatever it was, the nightmare was still vivid in his mind.</p><p>Bellatrix Lestrange had had Ginny pinned against a giant gravestone and Peter Pettigrew was heckling nearby. Ginny was fighting like mad, but she couldn’t break free. Harry ran to her, but he was moving too slowly, and he’d forgotten his wand. He leapt onto Lestrange’s back, but she quickly threw Harry off, digging a bent dagger into Ginny’s throat—</p><p>He needed to see her. But it was almost one o’clock in the morning. He tried to remind himself she was safe asleep in her dormitory, that Lestrange and Pettigrew were dead, and that it was impractical for him to see her now in the middle of the night, hundreds of miles away.</p><p>But he couldn’t get those images out of his head. Had they been some sort of omen? For years, his dreams had rarely meant nothing.</p><p>He wished he had the Marauder’s Map back, so he could see her dot securely in her dormitory. He wished idiotically that they were telepathic, or at the very least that Hogwarts had telephones.</p><p>More than anything, he wished for Ginny to be with him, here in this bed.</p><p>Harry couldn’t just go back to sleep, that much was clear. He decided he would use Floo Powder to Hogsmeade, walk to Hogwarts, and figure out the rest when he got there. Resolved, he grabbed his glasses and wand from the night stand, put on his shoes, and went downstairs to get his traveling cloak.</p><p>There came an urgent knocking at the door.</p><p>Harry froze, heart hammering. What had happened? Was it someone coming to tell him something had happened to Ginny?</p><p>He opened the door and there she stood, soaking wet.</p><p>“What happened?” Harry blurted out.</p><p>“Where are you going?” asked Ginny, eyeing his shoes and cloak.</p><p>“I was coming to get you,” Harry said, feeling stupid.</p><p>“Well, I was coming to see <em>you</em>,” said Ginny. “Can I come in?”</p><p>Harry stepped aside, nonplussed, and she came in, dripping on the floor.</p><p>“Oh, sorry—” Ginny whipped out her wand and nonverbally dried herself instantly, including the small puddle she’d made.</p><p>“What are you doing here?” Harry asked, still shocked to find the exact person he’d wanted to see most standing in his foyer.</p><p>Ginny shrugged, uncharacteristically shy. “I wanted to see you.”</p><p>“Did something happen?”</p><p>“No.” Ginny hung her coat on the rack. Her voice was quiet when she spoke again. “I just missed you.”</p><p>“How did you get here?”</p><p>“I walked to Hogsmeade and took Floo Powder to that pub a couple streets down.”</p><p>“You shouldn’t do that!” Harry said, a little too loudly.</p><p>“Why?”</p><p>“It’s dangerous! You have no idea who could be outside the grounds. You can’t just go wandering around in the middle of the night!”</p><p>“I think I can take care of myself,” said Ginny, indignant.</p><p>“You always think that,” Harry snapped. “But one day it might not be true.”</p><p>Ginny wrinkled her eyebrows at him. “What are you talking about?”</p><p>Harry shook his head. His nightmare was still too fresh in his mind. He reached his fingers beneath his glasses to rub his eyes. “Nothing. I’m sorry.”</p><p>Ginny was still watching him warily, but eventually her face softened.</p><p>“Is it okay if I stay here tonight?” Her voice was soft again.</p><p>Harry considered her, knowing this was the solution to his problem—he’d wanted to see her, and here she was, safe. And even though he was still angry at her for being so stupid, all he wanted to do was take her upstairs.</p><p>“Fine.”</p><p>Harry couldn’t sleep that night unless he was touching some part of her body.</p><p> </p><p> </p><p>Over the next couple of weeks, they planned for Ginny to come to Harry four more times whenever she thought she could get away unnoticed. Although Harry made her use the Marauder’s Map and the secret tunnel from Hogwarts to Honeyduke’s, and he met her there to bring her back to his cottage. She stayed with him all night, despite Harry’s concern that her roommates would eventually notice her repeated absence. Admittedly, Harry didn’t put up much of a fight.</p><p>The first two nights, they found themselves simply lying in bed talking and laughing until the sun rose, enjoying the uninterrupted hours alone, and catching up on lost time. Harry would bring crisps and candies upstairs for them to snack on and they discussed how Ginny’s Quidditch practices were going and what Harry’s fellow Auror trainees and neighbors were like. The man in cerulean robes who had greeted Harry on his first day in Claret Rock had ended up being his next door neighbor with the funny wind chime in his overgrown front yard. Mr. Merryweather was his name, and he enjoyed doing his morning yard work while singing at the top of his lungs and while wearing only his underpants, which happened to be oversized polka-dot bloomers, a sight Harry found endlessly entertaining. Ginny rolled with laughter when Harry described Mr. Merryweather pruning his rosebushes and belting out ballads with his speckled rear end pointed straight up toward the sky.</p><p>On the third night, however, when it had gotten misty and quiet, somewhere around one o’clock in the morning, they began to whisper about darker things. Harry found it easy to talk to Ginny. Through the dim light of the streetlights outside, he could make out the shape of her lying next to him. The words tumbled out of his mouth as he spoke about the night years ago when he had found out Pettigrew had betrayed his parents and Sirius had had to escape on Buckbeak. Leaving nothing out, he told her every detail of what the Triwizard Tournament had been like, including that night in the graveyard.</p><p>“I remember that day so well,” said Ginny with a shudder. “You reappeared outside of the maze holding the Triwizard Cup, but you weren’t moving, and then someone was shouting ‘He’s dead! He’s dead!’ They were talking about Cedric, but I thought . . .”</p><p>She scooted closer to Harry.</p><p>She was also very interested to learn that Snape had been on their side all along. After Harry told her everything he’d seen in the Pensieve that spring, Ginny lay quietly for some time, deep in thought.</p><p>Ginny seemed most keen, however, to learn about the Prophecy and the Horcruxes. Harry spent hours telling her everything, and finally she knew the reason he’d had to leave her, where he’d been all those months, what he’d been doing.</p><p>“So the diary I wrote in for a year had a bit of Voldemort’s soul . . . inside it?” Ginny whispered as a burnt and feeble sun rose to the horizon early one morning. “It explains so much.” They lay on their sides facing each other, noses an inch apart. Harry had nearly lost his voice from talking all night. Ginny hadn’t interrupted him once.</p><p>“Yeah.”</p><p>“And . . . and you did too. That’s how you could get into the Chamber of Secretes to save me, by speaking Parseltongue. . . .”</p><p>“Mm hmm.”</p><p>“And you had to destroy all the other Horcruxes, but then you found out you were one too, and you had to die to defeat him once and for all?”</p><p>Harry nodded.</p><p>Ginny seemed to consider that for a time.</p><p>“And you went to him . . . to let him kill you . . . and you died?”</p><p>Harry said nothing.</p><p>“I wish you’d told me, before you’d gone,” she whispered.</p><p>“I couldn’t.”</p><p>“I know, I know. Dumbledore told you not to tell—”</p><p>“No, I mean I <em>couldn’t</em>. I never could have gone to Voldemort if I’d told you.”</p><p>Ginny adjusted her head on her pillow and reached, almost reflexively, for him. “Why not?”</p><p>Harry shifted uneasily, oddly frustrated that Ginny didn’t understand. “Because—once I’d decided to die, I couldn’t have spoken to you. . . . I could barely look at you. It wasn’t just a choice between life and death. It was a choice between having you . . . and not having you. And I <em>had </em>to die.”</p><p>The sun was over the trees before either of them spoke.</p><p>“And the whole time you were gone, risking your life, you didn’t even have a plan?” she asked.</p><p>“Not really.”</p><p>Ginny grinned, though with a hint of exasperation. “I knew it.”</p><p>And on the fourth night, Ginny finally told Harry in a soft voice the events of her year with the Carrows in charge at Hogwarts, about the torture she endured at their hands, from suffering the Cruciatus Curse to being whipped until she bled. As she spoke, Harry tried to give her the same space she’d given him and didn’t speak, all the while making a mental note to pay the Carrows a special visit in Azkaban when he became an Auror.</p><p>“It was . . . awful,” she went on, curled on her side facing Harry in bed and silhouetted against the dim moonlight trickling in through the window. “There was no resisting them. No one to save us. And that whole year I spent every day wondering who in my family would die, whether you were already dead. I had to watch my friends get tortured in front of me, and there was nothing I could do. I know you’re probably thinking ‘Oh, buck up Ginny, that doesn’t sound any worse than Umbridge.’ . . .”</p><p>“I don’t think that,” whispered Harry, breaking his silence.</p><p>“It wasn’t the same,” continued Ginny as if he hadn’t spoken. “I was completely alone. No Dumbledore, no Ron, no you, no Hermione . . . I couldn’t even talk to my parents without getting them in trouble.” She avoided his gaze, fiddling with a loose strand at the seam of her pillowcase, seeing something in her mind’s eye he couldn’t access.</p><p>Harry was reminded of the night he’d found her crying in the girls’ bathroom at Hogwarts, before they’d started dating. She’d had a nightmare about Tom Riddle, about his possessing her, making her do terrible things. That had been, and still remained, the only time she had ever truly opened up to him about that experience. And that night, just like tonight, she seemed to have been taken somewhere Harry couldn’t follow. The pain had lingered with her for years, visiting her at night like a ghost.</p><p>“I suppose you can’t really know,” she breathed, reading his mind. “You weren’t there.”</p><p>It wasn’t an accusation, Harry knew, just the simple truth.</p><p>Ginny grew silent after her retelling. He could barely see her shadowed face and could think of no words that properly conveyed how he felt. She seemed a thousand miles away, a stranger. So Harry took her hands in his and inspected her palms properly for the first time since it had happened, finding pink, criss-cross slash marks etched into her skin in the moonlight. He brought one palm to his mouth and Ginny jerked her hand away instinctively, but Harry held on; carefully, he brushed the scarred skin across his lips and felt every valley that had been dug into the flesh. Her hand relaxed slowly under his ministrations.</p><p>Yet the rest of her body remained balled up like a fist, curled in on itself protectively, and Harry found he couldn’t stand it. He wished he could undo what had been done, could reach that place in her heart that she felt had been broken forever. He knew enough of his own scars, visible and otherwise, to acknowledge that there was nothing he could say or do to mend things.</p><p>But he could try.</p><p>He crouched over her like a shelter and rolled her gently onto her back; she fell open like a book in a foreign tongue, one he’d only just begun to learn how to read. Watching her eyes for signs to stop, he slid her underwear off her hips and down her legs. He kissed her knees, eliciting a small smile from her, then slid his mouth up her inner thighs, and the smile fell from her face. Eyes still locked on him, she widened her knees.</p><p>Harry lowered his gaze and brought his mouth between her legs. And so it was that he discovered her anew, drinking her in, keyed in to each movement, sound, and tug of his hair she made. She was so intoxicating, her taste, her smell, that he would have happily remained there for days. He couldn’t believe he had been prepared to die before getting to do this. While he still had no clue how to heal his own wounds, how to step out from beneath his own shadows, he was determined to find Ginny in the dark and drag her out.</p><p>“Down a bit,” murmured Ginny, head thrown back. <em>“There.”</em></p><p>As he explored, he accepted how much of her body, her soul still remained unknown to him. He had thought he’d begun to gain an understanding of her these past months, how she worked, what was in her heart, her deepest reaches—but he was seeing now that there was a lifetime of mysteries yet to unfold within her.</p><p>Ginny moaned loudly.</p><p>Harry grinned, his tongue pressed against her warmth; he had always been rather good at solving mysteries.</p><p>On an unplanned fifth night, Ginny arrived unannounced at the stroke of midnight, evidently unconcerned with sharing more stories. She took a sleepy and bewildered Harry into the kitchen, unzipped his jeans, got on her knees, and took him in her mouth. His knees buckled as he tried to translate what she was striving, very emphatically, to tell him. She didn’t utter a thing, and yet Harry hung on her every word.</p><p>When Harry wasn’t with Ginny, he thought about her constantly. He couldn’t get enough of her. They wrote each other back and forth so frequently that they should have run out of things to talk about, but no detail of Ginny’s life was too small for Harry; she wrote about the steak and kidney pie they’d had for dinner up at the castle; the gory details of a fight Ginny’s dormitory mates Bridget and Isabelle had had when one thought the other had stolen a sweater; the Potions essay on the Volubilis Potion that had given her such grief; and one time she even listed the locations, sizes, and shapes of the scrapes and bruises she’d gotten lately at Quidditch practice.</p><p>Supplied by the stories in Ginny’s letters, Harry enjoyed imagining Ginny’s life at Hogwarts as he fell asleep at night. He pictured her in Herbology class, extracting sap from flesh-eating trees, drawing complex Quidditch diagrams to prepare for practices, and greeting friends at all four tables at breakfast.</p><p>Harry did very well in Auror training during those weeks, buoyed by his good mood as a result of all his time lately with Ginny. Auror Robards was still cool toward Harry, reticent to give him praise even when it was called for, but Harry didn’t care. He knew he was the best in the class, and he knew Robards knew it too. When the class would pair up to practice dueling with new skills, no one wanted to be Harry’s partner because his partners always ended up Stunned or jinxed or otherwise incapacitated. Ron was a good sport though, and out of a deep sense of friendship regularly allowed himself to be the target of Harry’s relentless assault.</p><p>During the physical portion of class when the trainees would run drills and navigate obstacle courses, Harry was yards ahead of the rest. He had discovered, and since enjoyed running around his neighborhood on cool mornings, that he was quite a fast runner—he remembered escaping Dudley and his cronies easily as a kid, but that apparently had not been entirely due to Dudley’s wheezing, panting inability to keep up. And because of Harry’s training in Quidditch, his reflexes were sharp and quick, and the obstacle courses were almost fun for him.</p><p>He regularly finished the physical portions first, and Auror Robards would click his silver stopwatch grudgingly, scowling at him as if Harry were proving some ironic point by being the best in the class.</p><p>Before Harry knew it, it was Ginny’s Christmas break and she was back at the Burrow for two weeks. All having time off from work (or training, in Harry’s case), Harry, Hermione, George, Percy, and Bill and Fleur returned to the Burrow as well.</p><p>The exterior of the house had been decorated in tinsel and twinkling lights and the warm, creamy smell of egg nog wafted through the kitchen window into the chilly air. The merriment extended inside, where everyone was crowded as usual in the kitchen and living room, laughing and drinking and joking, and Harry’s spirits lifted the second the door opened. Mrs. Weasley, wearing a thick red sweater that clashed with her hair, squeezed Harry tightly as usual when he’d arrived in the kitchen. “Oh, Harry, dear, your hair is getting so long!” Harry sensed a trace of remorse in her voice. “You’ll look like Bill soon if you’re not careful!”</p><p>“Yeah,” added George, winking at Harry, “what, is this all part of your swashbuckling, swollen-headed peacock look, Harry?”</p><p>“I wish you’d let me cut it,” Mrs. Weasley said, reaching up to try and flatten Harry’s messy strands.</p><p>“<em>Mum</em>, he has an image to protect!”</p><p>“I like his hair,” Ginny said loudly from the sink.</p><p>Harry, feeling closer than ever to Ginny as a result of all their time spent at his cottage, wished frequently over the break that he could simply be alone with her again, away from all the commotion, and they often contrived reasons to be alone, offering to fold laundry together in the tiny scullery or else excusing themselves early from meals minutes apart to snog in one of the upstairs hallways. Harry wasn’t sure they were fooling anyone, but he couldn’t help himself; lately, he could hardly think straight when Ginny was in the room.</p><p>Ron, on the other hand, was very glad for all the company over the holidays; he had been especially glad to see everyone, and muttered to Harry that his mother had been getting on his last nerve lately since he’d been living at home.</p><p>“She won’t leave me alone!” he hissed as Mrs. Weasley spoke with Bill at the opposite end of the table from where Ron, Harry, Hermione, and Ginny sat. “Constantly asking if I’ve got laundry and if I’m hungry and whether I’m going to finish my homework. . . .”</p><p>Harry was barely listening; he had become fixated on Ginny’s mouth as she ate, remembering the specific use she’d put it to recently.</p><p>“Oh, Ron, she’s just trying to be a mother for as long as she can,” said Hermione wisely, petting a purring Crookshanks in her lap. “Let her wash your underpants.”</p><p>“It’s not—it’s not about the <em>underpants</em>, Hermione,” Ron said. He and Hermione dissolved into whispered bickering.</p><p>“Glad to see that hasn’t changed,” said Ginny with a grin.</p><p>But then, there was something to distract Mrs. Weasley from her youngest son, and Ron from his mother. At the other end of the table, Bill and Fleur and Mr. and Mrs. Weasley were talking. Suddenly, Mrs. Weasley shrieked, clearly elated at something, and launched herself across the table, pulling Fleur into a chokehold of a hug and spilling Yorkshire pudding onto the floor. Bill had to pry his mother off his wife.</p><p>“<em>A BABY!</em>” Mrs. Weasley screamed, making George dig a finger in his ear. Ginny shot a wide-eyed look at Harry.</p><p>“Calm down, Molly, they only said they’re <em>trying </em>for one,” said Mr. Weasley, putting a hand on his wife’s shoulder and chortling.</p><p>But Mrs. Weasley didn’t seem to care about that distinction. After that, she spent the entire break singularly focused on making sure Fleur was comfortable and had everything she needed, propping her feet up by the fire, serving her extra helpings at meals, and even concocting some sort of fertility tea every night that Harry got a whiff of once—it smelled like troll feet. Yet Fleur seemed to have more tact than Ron and let her mother-in-law look after her, though insisting every few minutes that she was all right, to deaf ears.</p><p>“Merlin, she’s not even pregnant!” mumbled Ron irritably on Christmas Eve morning as he and Harry passed Mrs. Weasley in the hallway. She had cornered Fleur and was telling her in great detail about giving birth to Bill. Fleur was holding her toothbrush tightly as if she were wishing it were a Portkey to take her anywhere but right there.</p><p>Harry and Ron hurried into the sunny kitchen before they heard too much. They sat down next to Ginny and Hermione, who were already tucking into eggs and toast.</p><p>Ginny correctly interpreted Ron’s horrified expression. “Poor Fleur,” she said quietly to Harry so Mrs. Weasley wouldn’t hear. “Earlier this morning Mum was telling her how important it is to lie down after. I’ve never seen someone turn <em>magenta </em>before, but Fleur managed it.”</p><p>“Lie down after what?” Harry asked, biting into a piece of toast.</p><p>“<em>After</em>,” Ginny repeated, giving Harry a significant look. “Bloody hell, remind me to jump up and down next time,” she whispered.</p><p>Harry choked on his toast and coughed loudly, desperately hoping that Ron hadn’t heard her. He didn’t dare look at him, though, and instead caught Hermione’s eyes, which were about the size of their breakfast plates. Harry felt his face getting hot, and he knew he was giving Fleur a run for her money. Hermione didn’t look away, and Harry had to eat the rest of his toast pretending she wasn’t staring at him. Ron seemed not to have picked up anything; he was focusing on shoveling eggs into his mouth as quickly as he could, likely so he could get out of earshot of his mother’s story, of which they could all still catch gruesome snippets.</p><p>Later that morning, Harry followed Ginny through the back door into the chilly air so she could show off her new Quidditch maneuvers to George and Ron. Hermione caught Harry’s arm in the garden as the rest of the group walked on.</p><p>“<em>Harry.</em>”</p><p>“Hermione.”</p><p>Her face, somehow, was at once scandalized and disappointed. “<em>When were you going to tell me?</em>” she hissed.</p><p>“About what?”</p><p>She smacked his arm. “About you and Ginny.”</p><p>“Oh—er, I would’ve thought maybe Ginny had told you when you were both at Hogwarts.”</p><p>“Well, she didn’t.”</p><p>Harry watched as Ginny, an orange blur, zoomed through the air in a complicated spiral, George clapping from the ground beneath her.</p><p>Harry wasn’t sure what Hermione wanted from him. She knew, now, apparently. What more did she want? Very aware of the other Weasleys wandering around very close by, Harry did not fancy having this conversation just now.</p><p>“I’m your best friend.”</p><p>“I know that,” Harry said reassuringly.</p><p>“I just thought you would’ve told me. Especially since you can’t exactly talk about it with your other best friend.” Hermione looked across the orchard at Ron, who was asking Ginny loudly if he could have a go.</p><p>Harry didn’t know what to tell her. She was upset with him, but he hadn’t <em>avoided </em>telling her. He just hadn’t seen her since it’d happened, and it wasn’t exactly the sort of thing Harry would write about in a letter.</p><p>“I’m sorry,” he finally said.</p><p>“Oh, you don’t have to apologize,” she said, letting out a sigh. “I understand why you wouldn’t be going around telling people. There’s no telling what Rita Skeeter would do with that kind of information. I just wanted to know, that’s all.” She smiled at Harry. Then, as if she couldn’t help herself, she asked very gravely again, “Are you being careful?”</p><p>Harry glanced behind him into the kitchen, but it was empty.</p><p>“Yes,” he mumbled, mortified and feeling like he was being scolded.</p><p>“Good. I mean, I knew you were.”</p><p>They stood in the cold in silence for a little while as Ron mounted the broom and tried the move, not nearly as gracefully as Ginny.</p><p>“Would you want me to tell you?” Hermione asked abruptly.</p><p>Harry almost asked her what she meant, and then he realized. Honestly, he wasn’t sure if he wanted to know. Certainly no details. But if it was important to her, he wanted her to feel like she could tell him.</p><p>“Erm—”</p><p>“Because it hasn’t happened,” she said, fighting her own embarrassment. “Not yet.”</p><p>Harry looked down at her in surprise. She was watching Ron take a few laps around the orchard, a light pink creeping into her cheeks, whether from the cold or the awkwardness, Harry wasn’t sure. “Not even when you were alone in Australia?”</p><p>Hermione shook her head and crossed her arms for warmth. “I didn’t tell anyone because I thought he’d be embarrassed, but Ron got food poisoning early in our trip. I spent the whole time holding his head over the toilet.”</p><p>Harry tried not to smile. “What about all the wonderful museums and history and giant spiders?”</p><p>“Oh, we did make it to one museum, and Ron did see a huge spider on the window of our hotel one morning, but it wasn’t exactly the . . . adventure I had hoped for.” Hermione watched as Ron tried a loop-de-loop in the air. “And . . . I dunno.”</p><p>“What?”</p><p>“I suppose it just didn’t seem like the right time, anyway. We’re still getting to know each other, you know? I realize that sounds stupid since we’ve known each other for years, but—”</p><p>“I know what you mean.”</p><p>“When Ron wasn’t throwing up, we just talked. About everything. And nothing. Other things will follow, I’m sure.”</p><p>Harry smiled at her then, and nodded. He and Ginny had had the same start to their relationship, they had just rearranged things a bit.</p><p>On Christmas morning, Mrs. Weasley woke everyone up early to open their presents in the living room. Ron grumbled that he wasn’t a child, but less than an hour later he’d eaten half the candy in his small pile of presents by the fire.</p><p>Mr. Weasley, wearing green striped pajamas and a night cap, put on a Christmas record by Celestina Warbeck, Mrs. Weasley passed out scones, and everyone opened their presents. Evidently Ron had told Hermione about Harry’s Playstation, because Harry’s gift from her was a new game for his console. Everyone stopped opening presents so Harry could explain the concept of video games, with excited interjections from Ron.</p><p>Hermione and Ron had inadvertently gotten each other identical presents—a memory book they had seen in a shop in Australia together—and they and everyone else laughed. Mrs. Weasley had framed Ron’s Order of Merlin, which he seemed deeply grateful for, perhaps mostly because it wasn’t another sweater. But Mrs. Weasley hadn’t stopped knitting—in the few days between Bill and Fleur announcing they were trying to get pregnant and Christmas morning, she had knit Bill and Fleur a peach baby blanket.</p><p>Ron rolled his eyes privately to Harry and Hermione. “Merlin, when she actually <em>does </em>get pregnant, Mum’ll get them the moon.”</p><p>“It’s sweet, Ron,” said Hermione in her nightgown and robe, still clutching the memory book she’d opened a quarter of an hour ago.</p><p>Ginny had gotten Harry a set of very advanced defensive magic spell books that would be extremely useful in his Auror training.</p><p>A little while later, Ginny, wearing her robe over an oversized nightshirt with her hair in a thick, messy ponytail Harry was able to recognize by now as one she’d slept in, opened a small package from him and beamed at him the second she opened it. It was the small silver horse necklace she’d seen in Plymouth.</p><p>“Ooh, just like your Patronus, Ginny!” said Hermione, admiring it and helping her put it on. All morning Harry spotted Ginny absently fingering the charm where it fell, right at the hollow of her neck.</p><p>George got everyone new products from his shop—Harry had gotten a self-inking quill. But the most memorable gift George handed out was the one for his parents. Mrs. Weasley unwrapped it and immediately started sobbing. Everyone stopped unwrapping, and a teary Mr. Weasley showed the gift to everyone. It was a handsomely framed portrait of Fred in his hand-knit “F” sweater. He waved from inside the frame at his family.</p><p>“Had it commissioned from a painter who came by the Leaky Cauldron one day,” said George proudly. “Of course, I sat for it, so really it’s a portrait of me. But you get the idea.”</p><p>Mrs. Weasley hugged George for a solid five minutes.</p><p>After lunch, an owl came to the kitchen window, delivering what might have been Hermione’s most important present.</p><p>“Hermione, your marks are in!” called Percy, who had relieved the owl of its letter. Harry, washing dishes nearby with Ginny, could make out the Hogwarts crest on the back of the letter.</p><p>Hermione came running into the kitchen and took the letter from Percy. But then she froze.</p><p>Everyone else came into the kitchen, including Ron, who was still eating from his box of Bertie Bott’s Every Flavor Beans.</p><p>Hermione shoved the letter at Ron. “You open it.”</p><p>“Oh, come off it, Hermione,” said Ron once he’d swallowed his candy. “We all know you got perfect marks.”</p><p>But she held the letter out to him all the same. He took it with a sigh, broke the wax seal, and everyone stood and waited in silence as he read the letter.</p><p>“I don’t know why I always got such poor marks in Divination,” began Ron, still looking down at the letter. “I’m obviously clairvoyant.”</p><p>“Out with it, man!” said George.</p><p>“Perfect marks.”</p><p>The kitchen erupted into cheers and shouts (Ginny accidentally flung her sponge across the room), and everyone descended on Hermione and hugged whatever part of her they could reach.</p><p>“‘Outstanding’ in all seven classes?!” shrieked Mrs. Weasley.</p><p>“Congratulations, Hermione!” shouted Bill. “Finished in record time, too!”</p><p>“I don’t think that’s ever been done!” beamed Mr. Weasley.</p><p>“You beat Percy!” cried George, causing Percy to stop celebrating. “He only had five perfect scores!”</p><p>“Zat eez very impressive!” called Fleur, smiling at Hermione.</p><p>Later that day, Mr. Weasley hung Fred’s portrait in the living room by the clock, and the portrait took to teasing and pranking anyone who walked by. It even managed to trick Harry into looking over his shoulder before shouting “Made you look!”</p><p>They all sat around the fire that evening, having never changed out of their pajamas, and listened to the radio. Everyone was happily full from a warm Christmas dinner and sat together in a pleasant quietness. Mrs. Weasley was knitting what looked suspiciously like baby booties, and Mr. Weasley and Percy were talking softly over glasses of egg nog. Across the room, Bill was playing with the Anti-Gravity Hat George had given him, Fleur was bravely trying to finish another fertility concoction, and Ron and Hermione were deep in their own hushed conversation on the couch, Hermione’s legs draped over Ron’s lap.</p><p>Harry sat on the floor thumbing through the books Ginny had gotten him. George and Ginny came into the room after a while, and Ginny sat next to Harry.</p><p>“Here,” she said under her breath. She handed Harry a small bit of flesh-colored string, with what looked like a minuscule ear on one end. “George gave them to me for Christmas,” she said, revealing an identical one in her hand. “It's the new model of Extendable Ears. It allows you to hear from miles away now, instead of just a few yards. One person has to have one end in their ear, while the other person has the other in their ear. George calls them Exceedingly Extendable Ears. I asked him if I could tweak it a bit, and we’ve just been upstairs all this time charming it to work up to about . . . five hundred miles.” She gave Harry a mischievous grin.</p><p>“I don’t follow,” said Harry.</p><p>“We can communicate with these all day, every day, and no one even has to know.”</p><p>Harry thought the devices were a great idea. He’d no longer have to simply imagine Ginny’s day-to-day life; he’d be able to hear it firsthand. And the next time he had a nightmare, he’d be able to check in with Ginny immediately and reassure himself that she was okay.</p><p>They quickly shoved the Extendable Ears in their pockets as Mrs. Weasley walked by with empty egg nog glasses. Even though there was nothing really wrong with the Ears, they both instinctively guarded them from Mrs. Weasley, who had a nasty history of throwing out Weasley’s Wizard Wheezes wares.</p><p>Everyone finally made their way to bed, and Harry, having stayed in the living room a little later to finish a chapter in one of his new books, ran into Ginny holding her toothbrush in the dark hallway on her way from the bathroom. She wore her usual oversized t-shirt, and the sight of her in it made Harry miss her keenly, even as she stood in front of him.</p><p>“I wouldn’t go up just yet, if I were you,” she said. “Mum’s finally gone too far—she was asking Fleur about her period, and Bill went off on her.”</p><p>Indeed, Harry could hear muffled, yet raised, voices from the floor above. Ginny’s own bedroom door a few feet away was closed, and a soft light came from within; Hermione was likely reading inside.</p><p>They stood in the dark together, listening to the fighting a few feet away.</p><p>Harry took in Ginny standing there in her night shirt, her hair still in a ponytail, and he imagined grabbing it—</p><p>He closed the gap between them, lifted her shirt a few inches, and found extra fabric at her hips.</p><p>“These aren’t yours,” Harry murmured with a grin, handling the fabric of the boxers Ginny wore. She eyed him.</p><p>“Take them off if you want them back.”</p><p>Just as Harry leaned in to kiss her, Mrs. Weasley’s angry shriek echoed from upstairs. The two of them laughed quietly.</p><p>“Let’s go to your place,” Ginny whispered.</p><p>Harry chuckled, then saw that she was serious. “I think they’d notice we were gone.”</p><p>“Only Hermione and Ron, if we came back before breakfast, and they don’t count.”</p><p>“They don’t?”</p><p>“No,” shrugged Ginny. “Hermione won’t care and I can handle Ron.”</p><p>Harry didn’t want to tell her that he now knew for a fact that Hermione <em>did </em>care, a lot, and that while he was sure Ginny could handle Ron, Harry wasn’t sure he could. Ron was surly enough about his mother, and Harry would have to see him constantly at Auror training, and he wasn’t sure what Ron would do if he found out.</p><p>“I can’t, Gin.”</p><p>She sighed but didn’t argue. “I guess this’ll have to do, then.” And she kissed him, pressing him against the wall. Harry took hold of her, instantly forgetting where they were. She drew his lower lip into her mouth and then pulled away to pierce him with that blazing look, making Harry feel lightheaded.</p><p>“Merry Christmas, Harry,” she breathed. Then she disappeared into her bedroom, leaving Harry alone in the dark, keenly regretting saying no.</p>
  </div></div>
<a name="section0005"><h2>5. Alvis the Adamant</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Summary for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
            <p>Harry learns that Ginny has a very meddlesome—and handsome—admirer at Hogwarts.</p>
          </blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>When the holidays were over, most things went back to normal, except that Hermione found a small flat in London and started work immediately at the Department for the Regulation and Control of Magical Creatures. Ron spent less time at Harry’s, choosing instead to visit Hermione more often after Auror training. Though Ron still came by regularly to play Harry’s new video game and, as he put it, “be in a non-studying-friendly house.” Apparently Hermione made Ron work on homework any time they weren’t expressly on a date.</p><p>At the beginning of the year, Harry and Ron started their Poisons and Antidotes course, and they grinned at each other when Auror Robards briefly went over bezoars. Harry kept up his studies and physical training, even as the courses became more difficult and demanding. He remained at the top of the class, even as many of their fellow trainees had dropped out; they numbered only twenty-two now.</p><p>Occasionally, Harry and Ron would meet Hermione for lunch at a Muggle diner near the Ministry, and she would tell Harry all about her new job. One bit of news Hermione shared that Harry found very interesting was that the Ministry was no longer employing dementors—even in Azkaban. A team of Aurors were now stationed as guards there. Hermione was also working on her own piece of legislation that would have the Hogwarts elves receive pay for their labor. Harry couldn’t help but wonder how many elves would remain at the castle if that passed, but he said nothing.</p><p>Harry and Ginny began using their Extendable Ears immediately when Ginny returned for her final term. Harry started out awkwardly, narrating his daily activities to her like doing the dishes or cutting carrots, Ginny did the same, under her breath, until people started thinking she’d gone off her rocker, talking to herself while she picked out library books or ate lunch, and she stopped.</p><p>But Harry listened raptly as Ginny went to breakfast in the mornings, the familiar bustle of hundreds of students and silverware clanking on plates, as she sat in Charms class and answered Professor Flitwick’s questions so frequently it would’ve impressed even Hermione, and as she called out orders on the Quidditch pitch during practice.</p><p>Harry had signed a binding magical confidentiality contract before he’d started Auror training, so he couldn’t take his Extendable Ear with him to trainings and let Ginny hear what he was up to there. But he let her listen to him learn to cook, go for his runs around the neighborhood, and play video games with Ron.</p><p>When Ginny could find time alone, they would talk about their days.</p><p>They often fell asleep with the Ears still in place, and Harry slept well, listening to Ginny’s deep breathing as if she were right there next to him.</p><p>“Harry?” came Ginny’s sleepy voice late one night. Harry had been asleep himself, and he roused awake, beckoned by the sound of her.</p><p>“I’m here.”</p><p>She didn’t answer immediately, but he could hear her breathing.</p><p>“I miss you.”</p><p>“I miss you too.”</p><p>Her exhales had whispers of moans in them, and with a swell of lust Harry realized what she meant. Driven by her small noises, Harry slid a hand beneath the sheets.</p><p>“I couldn’t stop thinking about you all day,” whispered Ginny.</p><p>Harry smiled at the dark ceiling, imagining her above him.</p><p>“Like how you kiss me right below my ear,” she went on, making another noise in her throat, one Harry knew well. “I go weak when you do that.”</p><p>“Can’t others hear you?” murmured Harry, feeling the length of himself.</p><p>“Silencing charm.”</p><p>“Of course,” he said, grinning.</p><p>“Y’know,” she whispered after a moment, her words strained a bit, “I did this just fine when I could only imagine what you looked like, but now that I know you have that perfect dick, I’m done for whenever I think about it.”</p><p>Harry let out a laugh, amazed and bashful at her frankness, even as he was flattered and flooded with pleasure.</p><p>“Seen a lot of those, have you?” Harry teased.</p><p>“I study the things that interest me. Also, six brothers and one bathroom.”</p><p>They laughed together.</p><p>“I wish you were touching me,” she breathed.</p><p>His want for her throbbed in his palm.</p><p>“Talk to me,” she whispered as their breaths moved in sync.</p><p>“I won’t be as good at it as you are,” he managed.</p><p>“Try.”</p><p>Harry’s brain was muddled and fuzzy; he wracked it for something to say, but nothing came to him. “I don’t know, Ginny, I can’t even think straight I want you so badly.”</p><p>She let out a small moan. “That works.”</p><p>Harry laughed again before they devolved once more into rhythmic breathing. He pulsed every time Ginny whispered his name in his ear and felt suddenly emboldened to say more.</p><p>“I love your voice,” he whispered. “You could give a History of Magic lecture and it’d have the same effect you’re having on me now.”</p><p>Ginny let out a laugh mixed with a stifled cry of pleasure. “I can recount the Goblin Rebellion of 1612 if you want.”</p><p>“Please do.”</p><p>They listened to each other as they took increasingly shallow, urgent breaths.</p><p>“Remember when I just came over out of the blue? I took you into the kitchen and—”</p><p>“I don’t think I’m ever going to forget that.”</p><p>“I need you just like that, right now. I need to have my mouth on you.”</p><p>Harry let out a kind of strangled moan as his hand quickened at the thought of her tongue. He could have sworn he smelled her there as if she were next to him.</p><p>“I can hear everything you’re doing,” she breathed, “it’s so sexy.”</p><p>“—Ginny—”</p><p>A sudden earthquake rent through his entire body and he moaned and gasped loudly as it took over him, rolling off to his side, unable to control himself.</p><p>“Bloody hell—” Ginny’s own sighs and groans erupted in his ear. They lay in panting silence together for a moment before Ginny spoke again. “Merlin, you can’t just make sounds like that.”</p><p>The corners of Harry’s mouth turned up and he was asleep within seconds.</p><p>In early February, Ginny had another Hogsmeade visit. Harry waited for her in the middle of the street, and as he looked around trying to spot a flash of red hair in the crowds, someone tapped his shoulder.</p><p>It was Robert Alvis. He wore his Ravenclaw robes and his Head Boy badge, looking out of place among all the students in casual clothes. He was taller than Harry, and much burlier.</p><p>“I know your game, Potter, I read that book,” said Alvis, fixing Harry with a threatening look. “When are you going to get tired of Ginny and toss her, eh? Like you do with every other girl you date?”</p><p>“Do I know you?” Harry asked coolly.</p><p>“Robert Alvis, Head Boy,” he said, tapping his badge like it meant something. He leaned in. “You’re not good enough for her.”</p><p>Harry resisted the urge to punch him in the nose, remembering his lecherous eyes on Ginny in Honeyduke’s during their last visit. He gritted his teeth and tried to keep his composure.</p><p>“Unless you’re going to kiss me, get out of my face.”</p><p>“You think you’re a hotshot, don’t you?” Alvis looked Harry up and down. “Planning on shagging Ginny real well before you throw her aside, are you? Why don’t you pass her on to someone who can properly satisfy her?”</p><p>Harry whipped out his wand and dug it into Alvis’s chest right as a small hand gripped his arm.</p><p>“Piss off, Robert,” said Ginny at Harry’s side, shooting Alvis a dangerous look. Alvis looked at the two of them, smirking, then stalked off.</p><p>“What the hell were you thinking?” Ginny hissed.</p><p>Harry stared after Alvis, incensed. “He’s a gobshite wanker and I don’t want him anywhere near you.”</p><p>“That’ll be hard to arrange since we have Potions and Transfiguration together.” Ginny straightened her coat over a casual navy dress and boots.</p><p>Shaking with rage, Harry tried to contain himself as they walked around the village, but when they entered the Three Broomsticks and Alvis was sitting at the bar, Harry had to leave.</p><p>“Let’s just go to Plymouth,” suggested Ginny.</p><p>And so they did.</p><p>As they walked down the main strip of Plymouth’s waterfront, Ginny stopped in front of the cinema theater, gazing up at the blinking lights and larger-than-life posters.</p><p>“I want to see a movie,” she proclaimed.</p><p>“You do?”</p><p>“Yes!”</p><p>Harry smiled despite his lingering anger. He suspected Ginny was just trying to distract him, but he decided to let her. “What kind?”</p><p>She looked back at him. “What kinds are there?”</p><p>“Well, that one there looks like some kind of action movie, car crashes and such, and that one is most likely a romantic comedy.”</p><p>“A what?”</p><p>“You know, a bloke tries to get the girl but some sort of misunderstanding keeps them apart until they finally get together.”</p><p>“Seen a lot of those, have you?” Ginny chided, her eyes sparkling with mischief. “What about that one?”</p><p>She pointed to a dark poster with a scared-looking young woman and what looked like woods behind her.</p><p>“Horror.”</p><p>She rounded on Harry again. “That one.”</p><p>Harry bought two tickets, popcorn, a soft drink larger than his head, and every kind of candy they had because Ginny couldn’t choose. They found seats in the dark theater, and Ginny ogled at the movie screen.</p><p>“It’s like your television, Harry, but <em>giant!” </em>The couple in front of them gave Ginny a funny look before turning back around.</p><p>Ginny was so entertained and awestruck by the previews that Harry wasn’t sure if she could handle the movie itself. He had to explain to her in a whisper that these were merely advertisements for upcoming films, and weren’t related to what they’d come to see. She kept gasping and making too-loud comments, causing someone behind them to shush her. Harry glared at them.</p><p>The lights dimmed further, and Ginny hunkered down deeper in her seat as the movie began, one box of candy already empty.</p><p>Throughout the movie, Harry cast sidelong glances at Ginny, particularly at the scariest bits. She stared bug-eyed at the screen, almost unblinking, the bag of popcorn clutched firmly in her hands. Harry grinned to himself; she was scared, but she refused to look away.</p><p>About halfway through, the couple in front of them abandoned the film and began snogging ferociously. Ginny didn’t seem to notice, her eyes glued to the screen.</p><p>When the movie was over and silent credits rolled and the only sound was the couple’s wet mouths, Ginny let out a breath she seemed to have been holding the entire time. Everyone else filed out of the theater, and the couple in front un-suctioned their faces apart, finally getting Ginny’s attention. But she looked at Harry once they were alone in the theater.</p><p>“<em>Did that really happen?”</em></p><p>Harry couldn’t help it—he laughed. “No. They just say it’s real to make it scarier.”</p><p>Ginny clutched her chest. “I didn’t think I’d be scared of a movie about a witch. <em>I’m </em>a witch. But that had to have been something else, like a banshee.”</p><p>Harry watched her, amused. “Are you all right?”</p><p>“Yes,” she said breathlessly. “I loved it!”</p><p>They left the theater and reentered the street, which was now lit by lamps beneath a navy blue sky. People were milling merrily about, ducking in and out of bars or restaurants. Reflections of streetlights danced on the surface of the harbour as they walked.</p><p>The cool, salty night air seemed to clear Ginny’s head as they made their way around the Barbican. “Why did that couple in front of us stop watching? They paid to see that movie, too.”</p><p>“Erm, well, a lot of guys take their girlfriends to scary movies hoping they’ll get scared and need to be . . . comforted.”</p><p>“You didn’t comfort<em> me</em>,” Ginny said, one eyebrow raised.</p><p>“You were way too invested. I wouldn’t’ve dared distract you.”</p><p>Ginny walked ahead a few feet. “It <em>was </em>awfully dark in there. You could get away with almost anything.” She started walking backwards, fixing Harry with her sideways grin and her blazing stare. “Maybe we can see it again sometime, and do it their way.”</p><p>Harry caught up with her and pushed her hips against a brick wall, inadvertently cutting off a couple exiting the pub next door.</p><p>“Oi, excuse you, mate!” snapped the man.</p><p>Harry kissed Ginny messily, recklessly, pinning her against the bricks.</p><p>“He’s just drunk, Pete, come on!” said the man’s girlfriend. Other passersby gasped in shock or else giggled tipsily at the sight of Harry and Ginny. Someone whistled.</p><p>“If you’re going to boff in public at least set out a tip hat, eh?”</p><p>The crowd thinned and Harry paused for a breath.</p><p>“What was that for?” Ginny asked, panting, her mouth red and swollen.</p><p>“You had that look on your face.”</p><p>“What look?”</p><p>“You know that look you have. You do this thing with your eyes, like you could just burn right through me . . . like you would happily murder someone with your stare. It really does things for me.”</p><p>“Wait, wait—” Ginny started, then she threw her head back and laughed. “You’re saying I have a murderous stare, and it turns you on?”</p><p>He laughed too. “It’s not so much the stare itself as it is . . . that it’s just so <em>you</em>. I’ve never seen anything like it.”</p><p>“Well, I need to use it carefully if it’s going to elicit such a strong reaction.” Her hand slid across the front of Harry’s jeans.</p><p>“When do you have to be back?” he asked gruffly.</p><p>She turned his wrist and read his watch. “Twenty minutes.”</p><p>Harry smiled.</p><p>They appeared with a <em>crack</em> at Harry’s garden gate, and Harry fumbled with his key at the door, barely able to command his body to focus on anything other than what it was currently begging him to do. He finally got the door unlocked, Ginny giggling all the while, and he pulled her inside.</p><p>They were a clumsy hurricane of tugged off coats, rough kisses, kicked off shoes, and grasping hands as they bumbled down the dark hall, each trying to overpower the other. They reached the couch and toppled over inelegantly, Harry managing to get himself on top of her between her legs.</p><p>Up on his knees he yanked impatiently on her dress, pulling it over her head, causing her hair to tumble across her shoulders and envelope him in her flowery scent. His feverish fingers grabbed her knickers and jerked them down her legs as she unclasped her bra and threw it on the floor. She unbuckled his belt expertly, her face inches from his groin. Her eyes, unblinking on his, had that look again as she unzipped his jeans.</p><p>Harry did indeed feel drunk as she pulled his jeans and underwear down around his thighs, and he tore his own shirt off and, in his haste, accidentally knocked his glasses across the room. Ginny threw herself back on the couch, laughing. Still on his knees, Harry wrenched her hips up to his and entered her. Ginny’s laugh caught and strangled into a deep moan.</p><p>He drove into her relentlessly, pulling her against him with each thrust, leaving only Ginny’s shoulders and head on the cushions. She pressed her hands into the arm of the couch to push her hips higher, harder, all the while making sounds Harry had never heard her make before.</p><p>“Fucking hell, Ginny, you’re going to make me—”</p><p>Harry’s words fell away as he cried out uncontrollably, collapsing on top of her and continuing to drive her thoroughly into the couch, alive with the sounds of her moans, the feel of her around him. The surge finally ebbed and Harry stilled above her.</p><p>Body still throbbing, Harry slid down the couch between Ginny’s legs and eagerly brought her wetness to his mouth, tasting the both of them as Ginny groaned appreciatively. He reached both hands around her hips and found her breasts, which fit perfectly in his palms, and he reveled in the feeling of having her at his complete mercy, subject to his whims—his pinches, flicks, tugs, licks, laps, and teeth.</p><p>Ginny writhed and wriggled beneath him frantically, hands flying from his hair to overhead and back to his hair.</p><p>“Oh Harry, oh Harry, oh <em>Harry</em>—”</p><p>He locked eyes with her and felt her entire body shudder and convulse; she released a torrent of hoarse cries and curse words and Harry could feel her pulsing madly against his mouth as she continued to cry out. On the floor beside them, sticking out of a pocket in her discarded dress, her wand emitted brilliant pink sparks.</p><p>Only then did Harry release her and she lay beneath him, flushed and attempting to draw in shallow, shuddering breaths. Harry dug his wand out from between two couch cushions and Summoned his glasses.</p><p>“I didn’t know wands could do that,” he said, wiping his mouth and looking down at Ginny’s wand. Ginny said nothing but continued to lie underneath him, limp and panting. Harry checked his watch. “You better go or you won’t make curfew.”</p><p>Ginny looked up at him, red hair tangled and stuck to her face. “You really did me in, Potter. I don’t think I can move.”</p><p>“Are you inviting yourself over to spend the night?” teased Harry.</p><p>Ginny nodded.</p><p>Harry pulled his jeans off the rest of the way and took a blanket off the back of the couch. Squeezing to lie next to her along the cushions, he pulled the blanket over them and pointed his wand at the fireplace.</p><p>
  <em>“Incendio.”</em>
</p><p> </p><p> </p><p>On Valentine’s Day, Ginny said she’d be able to visit that night. Harry sat impatiently through Auror training, counting the seconds until she would be able to arrive. Harry put his Extendable Ear in when he got home, and Ginny caught him up on her day. According to her, classes had been interrupted all morning by doves swooping in through open windows and doors to deliver roses to students from anonymous admirers.</p><p>During Ginny’s Care of Magical Creatures lesson at the end of the day, in which Hagrid was teaching them how to freeze and repurpose Ashwinder eggs, Harry listened as the class got distracted by something in the sky.</p><p>“It’s a bleeding horse!” cried one student.</p><p>“No, stupid, it’s just a bunch of red birds!”</p><p>“Wait—they’re doves!”</p><p>The class oohed and aahed at something Harry couldn’t see, but then he could indeed make out the sound of doves cooing.</p><p>“Are those all for you, Ginny?” gasped Bridget.</p><p>“They must be carrying a hundred roses!” said another student.</p><p>“Ginny, who are they from?”</p><p>“It just says ‘R.A.,’” said Ginny.</p><p>“All righ’, back ter freezin’, if yeh please,” came Hagrid’s voice.</p><p>That evening Harry lay on his couch half-reading one of his new magical defense books, tired and sore from training. He was close to falling asleep. Ginny was just finishing up studying in the library, and it had been a quiet two hours listening to her flip through pages. Through the Extendable Ear, Harry heard her pack her bag and scoot her chair back under the table with a small screech. Harry listened as she walked out.</p><p>“Ginny,” said a male voice Harry knew he recognized. His eyes snapped open.</p><p>“Not now, Robert, I’m tired.”</p><p>“Did you get my roses?”</p><p>“Oh, yes. And once again, I’m <em>not interested.</em>”</p><p>“So you’re still in love with Potter, eh?”</p><p>“None of your business.”</p><p>“He’s no good for you, Ginny. He’s an arrogant tosser and he thinks he’s better than everyone else.”</p><p>“Get out of my way.” There was a small scuffle on the tiled floor.</p><p>“I know where you’re going tonight,” Alvis blurted.</p><p>Ginny only hesitated for a second. “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”</p><p>“I know you sneak out to see him. I’ll tell the Headmistress, unless, of course, you wisen up and go on a date with me.”</p><p>“Eat shit.”</p><p>Ginny had evidently pulled out her wand, because Alvis taunted, “Ah-ah-ah, no magic outside classrooms, Miss Weasley, you know the rules. I don’t want to have to deduct House points.”</p><p>Harry was about one second from Apparating to Hogsmeade, storming into the castle, and cursing Alvis’s head up his arse where it belonged.</p><p>“Let go of me!” said Ginny. Harry sat up, alarmed—Alvis was much larger than Ginny. But next second, there was a smacking sound, and Harry was sure Ginny had just slapped Alvis across the face.</p><p>“How <em>dare—”</em></p><p>“If you ever touch me again,” hissed Ginny, “I’ll hex your bollocks off.”</p><p>Harry heard her storm up several more flights of stairs and enter the common room.</p><p>“Are you all right?” Harry asked, still tense.</p><p>“I’m fine.”</p><p>“Maybe you shouldn’t come,” said Harry cautiously.</p><p>“I’m not letting that prat tell me what to do.”</p><p>And so, a few hours later once everyone in the common room had gone to bed, Ginny crept back through the portrait hole and made her way through the quiet castle. After several minutes of walking down stairs and through corridors, her footsteps began echoing on the walls, and Harry was fairly sure she was in the entrance hall.</p><p>“Miss Weasley,” came a stern, familiar voice.</p><p>“Hullo, Professor,” said Ginny.</p><p>Harry froze in his kitchen as if Professor McGonagall could hear and see him, too.</p><p>“I didn’t want to believe it when Mr. Alvis told me, but here you are.”</p><p>“I was just going for a walk.”</p><p>“Please do not insult both of our intelligences by lying. We both know you were going to see Potter.”</p><p>Ginny said nothing.</p><p>“I’m sure I do not have to remind you, Miss Weasley, that it is expressly against school rules to be out of bed after hours, not to mention <em>off the grounds </em>and <em>across the country</em>. I’ll leave disciplinary action with your Head of House. Please see Professor Hagrid first thing in the morning, and I’ll let him know to expect you.”</p><p>“Yes, Professor.”</p><p>There was a pause, and Harry imagined the two staring each other down from across the entrance hall, Ginny hoping McGonagall would retreat to her study and leave Ginny alone to continue sneaking out.</p><p>“Up you go,” said McGonagall.</p><p>Ginny walked back up the Grand Staircase, her footsteps echoing on the marble.</p><p>“Miss Weasley—” called McGonagall. “It may seem harsh to you, but if you’re caught going on such a foolish errand again, I’ll be forced to remove you from the Quidditch team. This is for your safety.”</p><p>Harry could almost hear Ginny fuming as she trudged all the way back up to Gryffindor Tower.</p><p>“Ant eggs,” said Ginny through gritted teeth, presumably at the Fat Lady’s Portrait.</p><p>Harry heard the portrait door creak open, and next moment something with many small pieces clattered onto the floor. If he knew Ginny, she had just kicked over a chess set.</p><p>“It’s okay,” Harry said into her ear. “Hagrid isn’t likely to give you an awful punishment, is he?”</p><p>“I hate being treated like a child,” grumbled Ginny. “At my age you were off hunting Horcruxes and fighting Death Eaters.”</p><p>“Yes, and I wish I’d’ve been at Hogwarts,” said Harry. “You only have one more term, then you can do whatever you want.”</p><p>Ginny was silent for some time, and Harry wondered if she’d taken out her Ear and ended the connection. But he could just make out the crackling of a dying fire in the background, and he knew she was stewing in angry silence in the empty common room.</p><p>“How d’you think that Alvis guy knew?” Harry asked.</p><p>“He talks to Delia Fairchild. Head Girl.”</p><p>“Isn’t she one of your friends?”</p><p>“Yep. But she takes Head Girl responsibilities very seriously. I’m sure she’s the one who found out about us and went to Robert asking him what he thought she should do.”</p><p>They sat in silence for a minute.</p><p>“I wish I could see you tonight,” Ginny murmured.</p><p>“If it makes you feel any better,” said Harry, “the cable’s out. You wouldn’t even be able to watch your infomercials.”</p><p>“That does help. And tell me you smell horrible after Auror training.”</p><p>“Oh, I do. Horrendous. And I’m pretty sure I’ve contracted Dragon Pox. Picked it up on the streets, you know.”</p><p>Somehow, Harry heard Ginny smile.</p>
  </div></div>
<a name="section0006"><h2>6. Fred Weasley and Firewhisky</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Summary for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
            <p>Harry attends the grand re-opening of Weasley's Wizard Wheezes and a memorial service for the one-year anniversary of the Battle of Hogwarts, neither of which go as planned.</p>
          </blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>As the weather thawed and spring crouched patiently somewhere in the near future, Harry and Ginny relied on their Extendable Ears more than ever since she couldn’t risk visiting him again. (Hagrid had begrudgingly given Ginny detention building stables for porlocks by hand. “Don’ ever do that again!” he had roared when he’d found out what Ginny had done, then he’d softened, sighing. “I know ye want ter see him, Ginny, but it’s too dangerous. I’m surprised he let yeh come in the firs’ place.”)</p><p>Harry did feel that perhaps they had been overzealous and even careless in their secret meetings. If anything had gone wrong, only Harry would’ve known where Ginny was supposed to be, and if anything had happened to the two of them. . . .</p><p>Neither of them seemed to have the heart to remove their Extendable Ear, even during the most mundane parts of their days. Soon, they were able to find an easy quietness in each other’s audible presence. Ginny had more coursework than ever and between studying almost every evening and Quidditch practice all weekend, she had little time for chatting with Harry.</p><p>But one little tradition they’d developed happened on Thursdays, when Harry would plant himself on the couch in his underwear, eating crisps and watching a crime drama on television, mostly for Ginny’s benefit, and Ginny would listen in, asking occasional questions like who’d killed who and whether Harry believed that suspicious-sounding woman was telling the truth.</p><p>Harry received two pieces of notable mail in March: the first was a bright orange invitation from George to a “Buy-Your-Butt-Off Extravaganza” sale at Weasley’s Wizard Wheezes on the first of April, and the second was a letter from Hogwarts, stating that they would be holding a memorial service on the second of May for those who had fallen during the Battle of Hogwarts.</p><p>Harry looked forward to the first and dreaded the second.</p><p>As it happened, April Fool’s Day was wet and gloomy and Harry had trouble motivating himself to get out of bed that morning. But he knew how important the store was to George, and he imagined all of the wild and amazing products on display, so Harry dressed and Apparated to Diagon Alley.</p><p>Mr. and Mrs. Weasley were already there along with Ron and a friendly face Harry hadn’t seen in a while—Charlie.</p><p>The muscular second Weasley son clapped Harry genially on the back.</p><p>“All right, Harry?”</p><p>“Fine. You?”</p><p>“Doing all right. In town for business, but I couldn’t miss this. George has outdone himself!”</p><p>Indeed he had; Harry looked around in wonderment at all the brightly colored merchandise, and saw several things he recognized: Fanged Frisbees, Pygmy Puffs, and Skiving Snackboxes, and many other things he didn’t, including something called a Frightening Fearbox that a small child to Harry’s left had just opened, peered inside it, and turned white before crying and running to his mum.</p><p>Other new wares included an enchanted toy raven that predicted the doom awaiting passersby, socks that ate your toes, and Faux Floo Powder, which, judging by the box, made the user twirl around on the spot and appear only in his underwear instead of traveling anywhere.</p><p>“Hi, Ginny,” said George in Harry’s ear, making him jump. Harry was in fact wearing his Extendable Ear, and only George would’ve been able to spot it.</p><p>“Tell George he smells,” said Ginny.</p><p>“She says hi,” said Harry.</p><p>“Harry, have you seen this?” called Ron warily from across the store.</p><p>He was pointing to a large display of giant boxes called Fred Weasley’s Behemothic Blaze Box. A large cardboard cutout of Fred (or perhaps it was George dressed as Fred) stood in front of the display with a large speech bubble over his head that read <em>“I lost my marbles over a good explosive—you should too!”</em></p><p>George walked over with Harry. “Ah, yes, from our Explosive Enterprises line. We used to have Fred Weasley’s Basic Blaze Box, complete with whizz-bangs and whammy rockets, but I decided to up the ante in honor of our brother. This box now contains Bombastic Bombs, Diabolic Dare Devils, and Peace Disturbers. I pity the neighbors of whoever buys this baby.”</p><p>Ron’s face turned as white as the boy with the Frightening Fearbox.</p><p>“Don’t you remember,” Ron asked in a small voice, though he towered lankily over George, “that Fred died in an explosion?”</p><p>“What’s your point?”</p><p>Just then, Mr. and Mrs. Weasley came within earshot. Harry watched nervously as Mrs. Weasley read the words on the boxes.</p><p>“This is sick!” yelled Ron, regaining some of his color. “Our brother dies in an explosion and you create <em>more </em>explosives with his name on them to sell to people?”</p><p>“George, what is this?” Mrs. Weasley asked, now reading the speech bubble over Fred’s cardboard head.</p><p>“The whole point of Weasley’s Wizard Wheezes,” said George pragmatically to Ron, “is to not let things like that get you down! I even made Earless Earrings for the Wonder Witch line, to make fun of my own injury,” he said, pointing to his missing left ear. <em>“‘Dark Wizard cursed your ears off? You can still dazzle and delight!’”</em></p><p>“Oh, George, how could you? And on his birthday!” wailed Mrs. Weasley, beginning to cry. Harry didn’t want to pry into a family matter, but he happened to agree with George. And as if she’d read his mind, Ginny said in Harry’s ear, “I’m with George.”</p><p>“Take this display down right now,” Mr. Weasley ordered in a terrifyingly calm voice. His moustache was trembling.</p><p>“No. We all need a laugh, especially when we’re sad.”</p><p>“Well, I’m not laughing. Take it down.”</p><p>“No!”</p><p>“Hey, everyone,” said Charlie in a soothing voice, having just walked up. “Let’s not make a scene, okay?”</p><p>Harry watched as Mr. Weasley and George glowered at each other, Mrs. Weasley wept silently, and Ron looked like he was going to throw up. Charlie put a large, calloused hand on his father’s shoulder, who immediately relaxed, and Ron stormed off. Mr. and Mrs. Weasley also left the display without another word. Harry supposed Charlie’s dragon taming came in useful in several aspects of his life.</p><p>“Fred would’ve gotten a kick out of it,” said George glumly, looking at the tower of boxes.</p><p>“I know.” Charlie led George back to the cash register, where a group of young witches and wizards had queued up, holding their merchandise.</p><p>Conversely, the second of May turned out to be a beautiful morning. Harry didn’t want to get out of bed then, either, but for entirely different reasons. He dreaded the idea of everyone ogling him at the service, wondering if he was a hero or a ham. But he couldn’t not go. The only thing that made him get dressed was the prospect of being with Ginny, whom he hadn't seen in almost three months.</p><p>As he got dressed and traveled to Hogsmeade, Harry didn’t hear anything in his Extendable Ear. Maybe Ginny hadn’t put hers in yet, although they usually slept with them. . . .</p><p>Harry walked up the cobblestoned streets of Hogsmeade toward the castle among a small crowd of other witches and wizards, likely heading up for the same reason. Several of them craned their necks at Harry and whispered to their friends behind their hands. Harry tried to ignore them. When the castle was in sight, Harry spotted Seamus Finnegan ahead of him in the crowd and hurried to catch up with him, relieved to see a friendly face.</p><p>“Seamus!”</p><p>“Harry! How are you? I hear you’re in training to be an Auror! And you got a place outside Plymouth? Cool!”</p><p>Harry smiled awkwardly; if Seamus had to read Rita Skeeter’s scathing articles about Harry, at least he had the decency to only mention the positive bits.</p><p>Others were not so generous; as Harry and Seamus made their way up High Street toward Hogwarts, the whispers from the crowd around Harry grew bolder.</p><p>“You’d think someone so filthy rich could afford better clothes. . . .”</p><p>“Maybe he’s trying to make a statement. . . .”</p><p>Harry walked, ears burning, through the iron gates and onto the castle grounds. About a hundred people were already gathered ahead, either standing around talking in small groups or seated in the white chairs assembled in the grass. The chairs faced a large plot of land, covered by a gigantic velvet sheet. As Harry stood around looking for bright red hair in the crowd, he instead spotted Cho Chang, seated with a young man Harry didn’t recognize. She’d cut her hair since he saw her last. Harry waved, but she pretended she hadn’t seen him. That was odd; was it because of the book? Surely she knew he had nothing to do with it. . . .</p><p>Seamus had found Dean in the crowd and they got seats together. Harry still stood, searching. Then he spotted Calliope Burnham, the new Gryffindor Seeker, near the front doors of the castle.</p><p>“Hey, Calliope,” he called as he walked over. “Have you seen Ginny?”</p><p>“Harry, hi! Oh . . . I think I saw Luna and Bridget take her to the hospital wing just now. . . .”</p><p>Panicked, Harry thanked her quickly and ran inside the almost deserted castle. He didn’t stop until he was crashing through the hospital wing doors.</p><p>Ginny was sitting up (a small bit of panic left Harry) in a bed halfway down the hall, and Bridget and Luna stood over her.</p><p>As he approached, he noticed something was wrong with Ginny’s face; there was a long, deep cut from her ear, across her cheek, to her chin. It looked fresh, and painful.</p><p>“Harry!” Ginny looked startled to see him.</p><p>“Hi,” Harry said to Ginny, brow furrowed. Luna was holding a bloody rag that she quickly hid behind her back, and she and Bridget were obviously avoiding Harry’s gaze, though Ginny stared at him defiantly.</p><p>“It’s from Quidditch practice,” she said a little too firmly. The cut was still red and angry.</p><p>Harry stared at her.</p><p>“We’re going to get seats, Ginny,” said Luna. She took Bridget’s arm and left.</p><p>“Didn’t see the Bludger, damn thing,” said Ginny, trying to laugh.</p><p>Harry still stared. “They add spikes to Bludgers since I last played?” His voice was cool and measured, but his blood had begun to boil.</p><p>Ginny gave a weak smile and said nothing.</p><p>“Where is he?” Harry demanded.</p><p>“Wh—Harry, no, it was a Bludger, I swear.”</p><p>But Harry wasn’t listening. He stormed back out of the hall.</p><p>“Harry!” Ginny called.</p><p>He ran into a Prefect in the corridor.</p><p>“Hey, where’s Alvis?” Harry asked nonchalantly.</p><p>The girl paused, gaping at Harry. “Second floor. He’s doing rounds making sure all the students are out of the castle.”</p><p>“Thanks,” Harry smiled at her, then marched up the stairs two at a time. He made a left at random. His instincts had been correct; Robert Alvis was at the end of the corridor, checking classrooms. Harry stalked up to him. If he’d had to look for him longer he might have had time to cool off.</p><p>But he didn’t.</p><p>“Well, if it isn’t The Boy Who Lied,” Alvis jeered.</p><p>
  <em>WHAM!</em>
</p><p>Harry had punched Alvis in the face with everything he had, knocking him flat on the floor, his nose gushing with blood. Alvis wailed in pain and Harry caught a glimpse of his nose between his fingertips and was satisfied to see that it was broken.</p><p>“I should have done that a long time ago,” spat Harry.</p><p>He walked back out of the castle, wiping his knuckles on his pants.</p><p>“Harry, there you are!” called Mrs. Weasley from the grounds. She stood in all black with Mr. Weasley, Bill, Charlie, Percy, George, Ron, and Hermione. Mr. and Mrs. Weasley and Ron seemed to have forgiven George, or at least weren’t behaving openly hostile toward him for the sake of the ceremony. Andromeda Tonks was with them as well, holding little Teddy in her arms. Teddy reached for Harry but he walked past them all.</p><p>“What’s wrong?” Hermione asked Harry quietly.</p><p>“Have you seen Ginny? We can’t find her anywhere,” said Ron.</p><p>But Harry couldn’t answer. He tried to control his ragged breath as they all found seats.</p><p>A little while later, Alvis came and sat down a few rows ahead of them to the right with Delia Fairchild and the Prefects. He’d magicked the blood away and fixed his nose with <em>Episkey</em>, but the skin around it was still dark blue. Harry silently dared him to look his way, but Alvis kept his eyes on his knees.</p><p>But Harry was soon forced to abandon his fantasy of stretching Alvis on a medieval rack when Professor McGonagall walked to the front of the crowd. Everyone seemed to have been seated, and an eerie quiet fell over the grounds. McGonagall magically magnified her voice and stood before everyone, chin held high.</p><p>“Friends, today we unveil a memorial to those who fell in the Battle of Hogwarts one year ago today. Sons and daughters, mothers and fathers, friends and neighbors laid down their lives in a revolution to liberate us from dark times, to put an end to wars among brothers, to overthrow the rule of Lord Voldemort and his Death Eaters, and to win lasting peace. . . .”</p><p>As McGonagall spoke, something began to mingle with the rage in Harry’s chest. Whatever it was crept into his heart. He suddenly felt sick.</p><p>“. . . Those comrades who fell last May brought us victory. Over the fifty bodies of those who gallantly fell in battle, passed hundreds of new and just as fearless fighters who bravely brought that battle to an end. . . .”</p><p>Harry had a stark vision of stepping over Lupin’s body, Snape’s, Fred’s, carelessly, like they didn’t matter. . . . He pictured the deaths he had seen: Fred’s body collapsing in the force of an explosion, Nagini’s fangs sinking into Snape’s neck. And he imagined the deaths he hadn’t seen: a curse hitting Lupin right in the chest. . . .</p><p>“. . . Let us honor the memory of the Fallen Fifty by swearing before their memorial that we shall follow in their footsteps and emulate their courage and heroism. Let their legacy be our future. Let their memory be the kindling that keeps the fires in our hearts strong. For in remembering, we make them immortal.”</p><p>With a flourish, McGonagall used her wand to whisk the giant velvet sheet away. What lay revealed were fifty identical, ornate stone benches, arranged in a perfect circle, with what looked like a large reflecting pool in the middle that shone brilliantly in the sun. Harry looked at it long enough to take in these details, then let his eyes blur somewhere over the Forbidden Forest beyond.</p><p>He didn’t want to be here. Harry felt at once that the memorial was vulgar, grandiose, an attempt to beautify an ugly reality—and simultaneously that it was not enough. He swallowed bile.</p><p>“Each bench bears the name of one of the fallen,” McGonagall was saying, “and the Pensieve in the middle is for anyone who wishes to deposit a beloved memory of a lost one, preserving it forever, to be revisited at any time.”</p><p>From there, McGonagall read each of the Fallen Fifty’s names, with respectful pauses in between. Everyone around Harry was crying, blowing their noses, while he grew increasingly numb. His ears buzzed angrily as McGonagall called Lavender Brown, Colin Creevey, Remus Lupin, and Nymphadora Tonks. Fred’s name was the very last to be called. Mrs. Weasley sniffled wetly somewhere to Harry’s left.</p><p>After that, everyone was allowed to rise and walk or sit among the benches, depositing memories. Harry remained in his chair as the Weasleys and Hermione visited Fred’s bench on the far side and Andromeda, carrying a wriggling Teddy, walked up to Tonks’s and Lupin’s benches.</p><p>“I could have you arrested for assault,” hissed an angry voice right in Harry’s ear, drawing him out of his thoughts.</p><p>Harry didn’t look at him. “Touch her again and they’ll have to arrest me for dismemberment.”</p><p>“I was right about you all along, Potter,” Alvis snarled. “You’re a freak.”</p><p>Harry finally looked at him. “Yeah, I am.”</p><p>“Mr. Alvis,” came Professor McGonagall’s voice with a drip of venom. She’d come up suddenly, and Alvis, leaning into Harry’s face, hadn’t noticed her. “I hope you are not being rude to my honored guest. Potter, come with me.”</p><p>Harry stood, feeling lightheaded, and followed McGonagall, not giving Alvis another glance.</p><p>“You will have to excuse Mr. Alvis,” McGonagall said. “I know he can be trying.” She led him around the grounds within sight of the memorial, but out of the fray of people. Harry’s legs felt like lead, and he wished he could leave the grounds, putting as much distance between himself and the memorial and Robert Alvis as possible. . . .</p><p>“The others on the memorial board also wanted to erect a giant statue of you,” McGonagall said. Harry looked at her, horrified. “But I managed to convince them that you were a bit more . . . modest than that, regardless of what recent literature might say.”</p><p>“Thanks,” said Harry, relieved.</p><p>“But,” she went on, “that is not to say that we are not all deeply grateful for what you have done. You must know”—she cleared her throat—“you must know how proud I am—how honored—that you were in Gryffindor. That you were my student.”</p><p>It registered with Harry that he should be profoundly pleased by her words, but he could only give her the ghost of a smile. “Thanks, Professor.”</p><p>A wizard Harry recognized from the Ministry stopped McGonagall and began speaking to her about something to do with the Wizengamot. Harry left them. Not wanting to linger on the grounds, he returned to the hospital wing.</p><p>“Harry, what did you do?” Ginny asked when he’d reentered.</p><p>“Why haven’t they healed your face?”</p><p>“They can’t. I mean, Madam Pomfrey just hasn’t figured out what’ll heal it. It’s cursed or something.”</p><p>“Why did he do this?”</p><p>Ginny hesitated, seeming to want to continue the charade that Harry only thought it was a Quidditch injury, but then she saw how serious, how angry, he was.</p><p>“He . . . found out about the Extendable Ear, and when I wouldn’t give it to him . . .”</p><p>A fresh surge of rage coursed through Harry.</p><p>“Ah, Harry, my boy!” Professor Slughorn had appeared. He shook Harry’s hand vigorously.</p><p>“Hello, Professor,” said Harry, trying to regain his calm. “How are you?”</p><p>“Oh, fine. Delighted to see you. Miss Weasley, whatever’s happened to your face?”</p><p>“Herbology class gone wrong. Those Venomous Tentacula are so cranky lately,” said Ginny. If Harry hadn’t been so angry, he would have marveled at her ability to lie so quickly and easily.</p><p>“Hmm . . .” Slughorn inspected Ginny’s cut dubiously. “Well, Madam Pomfrey called for me, asking to bring essence of Dittany up, and now I see why. Let me check in with her first.” He walked to the back of the wing.</p><p>Seconds later, Madam Pomfrey was shooing Harry out of the wing as she prepared to apply Dittany to Ginny’s face.</p><p>Harry reentered the grounds and immediately spotted Ron nearby, who was watching George a short distance away. He was speaking with Angelina Johnson and seemed uncharacteristically shy and awkward; he kept taking his hands out of his pockets and putting them back in again.</p><p>“Oh, I’m definitely going to take the mickey out of him for that later,” said Ron.</p><p>After the service when many people had left, Harry wandered alone around the edge of the grounds near the glassy lake until he reached the small hill and patch of trees that encompassed a white tomb—Dumbledore’s final resting place.</p><p>He climbed the mound and stood over the tomb, smooth and stark white in the setting sun. Harry placed his hand on the cold marble.</p><p>“You really did things your way, didn’t you?” he whispered.</p><p>A small breeze rustled the trees around Harry, making the hairs on the back of his neck stand up.</p><p>“Harry?”</p><p>He jumped as a hand fell on his shoulder. It was Hermione. Her eyes were red.</p><p>“Harry, we’re all going back to the Burrow for a little while . . . to be together. Are you ready?”</p><p>Harry turned back to the tomb.</p><p>“No, I think I’ll stay here a bit longer.”</p><p>Hermione hesitated for a moment, still standing behind Harry, but when he didn’t move, she descended the hill. Harry listened until he could no longer hear her footsteps in the grass.</p><p>The sun had disappeared behind the Forbidden Forest and evening birds had begun their music when Harry climbed back down the hill. The grounds were deserted; all that remained on the lawn was the monument. The chairs had been magicked away and everyone had left.</p><p>For the first time, Harry went to the monument, walking in a large circle inside the benches, reading each name in turn. He finally sat on Lupin’s bench and peered into the Pensieve, the surface of its contents rolling and swelling gently like the ocean in slow motion. He thought briefly of putting a memory into the Pensieve, perhaps of the first time Lupin taught Harry how to conjure a Patronus, preserving it forever as McGonagall had said. But as he reflected on his memories of Lupin and the other fallen, he found himself unwilling to part with any of them. He’d keep them selfishly in his mind, to be muddled over the years, yes, but they would be his alone.</p><p>When it was fully dark, Harry meandered across the grounds toward Hogsmeade, lost in his thoughts. Remorse and guilt had settled fully into his heart like twin ghouls. His feet carried him automatically all the way to the Hog’s Head Inn, where inside sat the most disreputable-looking crew he’d ever seen. A dirty wizard sat at the bar in a tattered brown traveling cloak; a hag with her face obscured, whom Harry knew to be a regular, took up the far corner; a tall, thin creature Harry was fairly sure was a vampire lurked near the fireplace; and several other seedy, weathered, and grumpy-looking people sat at tables throughout the pub. None of them looked up when Harry entered.</p><p>Walking past the fireplace and the dish of Floo Powder, Harry sat at the bar two seats down from the old wizard. Aberforth stood cleaning a glass behind the bar.</p><p>“Firewhisky, please.”</p><p> </p><p> </p><p>Two hours later, Harry was having trouble seeing straight. His tongue was thick in his mouth and his fingers felt ineffectual, like he was wearing mittens. But he’d succeeded in reaching blissless oblivion, numbing his brain, and he had perhaps achieved the impossible—he was invisible, and he wasn’t even wearing his Cloak.</p><p>No one in that inn cared that he was Harry Potter. No one asked him to sign anything or wondered aloud if he was a liar or a cheat. He was just another loser, another drunk, sitting at the bar with twelve empty glasses in front of him.</p><p>Aberforth tried to tell him he’d had enough, but Harry ignored him.</p><p>He was so drunk that he’d struck up a conversation with the filthy wizard to his left, and they’d gotten into a heated argument over Quidditch.</p><p>“Harry.”</p><p>He turned toward the stern voice. A blurry face and red hair stood over him.</p><p>“You seem tense,” Harry slurred at Ginny. “Have a drink.”</p><p>“Harry, we’re leaving.”</p><p>“<em>I’m</em> not leaving, I haven’t finished telling this <em>moron </em>right here what a moron he is,” Harry half-yelled, gesturing to the filthy wizard. “D’you know he plays for the Gorodok Gargoyles? And he thinks they’re gonna win this year, don’t you?” He rounded on the wizard. “The closest you ever came was when you beat the Toyohashi Tengu five years ago, and even <em>that </em>was a miracle! Excuse me—”</p><p>Ginny was yanking on Harry’s arm and had pulled him clumsily off his barstool.</p><p>“Gin, please, I’m in the middle of a conversation.” He spun back around at the wizard, a finger in the air, as Ginny dragged him stumbling out of the bar. “And another thing! If you think you’re going to beat the Montrose Magpies, you are <em>dreaming</em>. That whole team is solid. All the Gargoyles’ve got is one decent Seeker, and that’s you. Who d’you think you are, Roderick Plumpton?”</p><p>The wizard mumbled something to him in Lithuanian.</p><p>Next moment, Harry was standing in the cool night air.</p><p>“What a <em>loon</em>,” said Harry, leaning his full weight on Ginny.</p><p>Ginny began to half-carry, half-drag Harry up the cobblestoned street. Harry got a whiff of her hair.</p><p>“You’re beautiful,” he said earnestly.</p><p>“Thank you,” she clipped.</p><p>“You’re angry.”</p><p>“Can’t you use your feet at least a little bit?”</p><p>“You can’t be mad at me. I’m the <em>Chosen One. </em>If I wanna get drunk, I’m getting drunk. I fucking <em>died, </em>right in there, right in those woods—” Harry pointed in the direction of the Forbidden Forest with the arm that had been slung around Ginny’s neck, causing his unsupported weight to crash to the ground.</p><p>“Fine,” she huffed, and walked off.</p><p>Harry lay in the street for hours, or maybe minutes, watching the stars. It was a cloudless night, and they seemed to be moving in all different directions.</p><p>The next thing he knew, Harry was being scooped up in arms ten times thicker than Ginny’s.</p><p>“Up yeh get, Harry,” said a gruff voice. Harry lay dreamily in Hagrid’s arms all the way back to Hogwarts. He hadn’t realized he’d fallen asleep until he was inside Hagrid’s hut, where Hagrid deposited him roughly onto his giant bed, startling him awake.</p><p>“Wha’ happened?” Hagrid asked.</p><p>“Hermione said he’d stayed behind at the memorial, but he never came back to see me in the hospital wing, which I thought was odd. When Madam Pomfrey released me, I went looking for him. I’ve never seen him like this.”</p><p>“He’ll be all righ’. He just needs ter sleep it off.”</p><p>Harry drifted in and out of sleep, but he caught snippets of their conversation.</p><p>“Thanks for this, Hagrid. I know with you being Head of House now we can’t be so familiar. . . .”</p><p>“Codswallop. Yeh can come ter me anytime. Especially if that Alvis boy keeps givin’ yeh grief.”</p><p>Harry didn’t know how long he slept, but without warning, someone was slobbering all over his face.</p><p>“Eurgh, get off—” Harry managed to push Fang away and looked around the empty hut. He’d been transferred to a cot, and faint pink light shown through the window over the sink. Harry’s head felt like it was going to crack in two.</p><p>The front door crashed open with an ear-splitting bang and Hagrid filled the frame, holding a tankard in his hand. Suddenly, Harry vomited over the side of the cot into a conveniently placed bucket.</p><p>“Yer awake. Good.”</p><p>Harry squinted at him, barely able to lift his head off the edge of the cot.</p><p>“What happened?” he croaked.</p><p>“I was goin’ ter ask you that.”</p><p>Harry remembered walking to the Hog’s Head Inn and ordering a few firewhiskys, and vaguely of staring up at the stars.</p><p>Hagrid handed him the tankard and the stench made Harry gag.</p><p>“Drink it. It’ll make yeh feel better.”</p><p>Harry sincerely doubted it, but he took a gulp before he could talk himself out of it. It tasted as good as it smelled. Hagrid sat in his armchair and watched as Harry finished the drink.</p><p>“I hear ye clobbered Robert Alvis.”</p><p>It all came rushing back to him. “He used <em>Sectumsempra </em>on Ginny.”</p><p>Hagrid sighed. “Well. Then I can’ say he didn’ have it comin’. But why would he do tha’? He’s fancied Ginny all year.”</p><p>“Because she keeps turning him down.”</p><p>“Well, on’y a month ter go. He’s not likely ter try anythin’ else after yer little partin’ gift.”</p><p>Harry stewed in silence. He was unable to get the image of Alvis cursing Ginny out of his head. He wanted to hang him by his ankles and curse him until he begged—</p><p>“Harry . . .” Hagrid was now looking at Harry straight on. “You can’ protect everyone all the time, yeh know.”</p><p>But Harry only glared into the fireplace, where a large pot sat empty. He was unwilling to accept that he couldn’t protect at least those closest to him. Wasn’t that why he was becoming an Auror?</p><p>But deep down, how very well Harry knew there was little he could do to stop the people around him from getting hurt, even dying. Just as he grew close to them, just as he drew them in, they were stolen from him, leaving scars so numerous that Harry had stopped counting. . . . Perhaps he was meant to be alone. . . .</p><p>Hagrid let Harry sleep a bit more as he tended to his garden. When Harry woke again, Ginny was sitting at the foot of his cot.</p><p>Harry sat up quickly, making himself feel dizzy and nauseated. Though he felt a great deal better than he had earlier, before Hagrid’s concoction. He reached for Ginny’s jaw.</p><p>“Your face . . .” The cut had been healed, and it appeared about a week old now, pink and shiny. She was frowning at him.</p><p>“Slughorn says there won’t be a scar if I apply Dittany every day.”</p><p>“Ah. And here I was hoping we’d be twins.” But Ginny didn’t smile.</p><p>“You shouldn’t have punched Robert. I don’t need you to defend me.”</p><p>Harry wanted to retort, but his head was still pounding, and somewhere deep inside him, beneath the feeling of latent nausea, was the knowledge that she was right.</p><p>Ginny’s anger seemed to deflate. “Harry, what happened?”</p><p>He knew she was no longer asking about Alvis. But Harry still didn’t have a decent answer.</p><p>“It was all too much. I couldn’t . . .” Harry trailed off, then collapsed back down on his side. He watched dust particles laze in the air, illuminated by the yellow morning sun coming in as stripes through the window. It was a long time before Ginny spoke.</p><p>“You can’t blame yourself for their deaths, Harry.”</p><p>Harry’s throat tightened. His voice was small. “Why not?”</p><p>Ginny shifted on the cot, and then she was lying behind Harry. Her face pressed into his back, and she reached for Harry’s hand, but he didn’t respond. He only watched the dust.</p><p> </p><p> </p><p>When Harry returned to his cottage later that morning, an owl sat on his garden gate with the latest issue of the <em>Daily Prophet</em>. Harry took the paper and dropped a bronze Knut in the small satchel attached to the owl’s leg.</p><p>He flipped through the paper as he entered the house and couldn’t resist Rita Skeeter’s gossip column. The headline was as he’d suspected:</p><p>
  <b> <em>HARRY POTTER MAKES VIOLENT APPEARANCE AT HOGWARTS MEMORIAL</em></b>
</p><p>
  <em>Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry held a memorial yesterday for the victims of the Battle of Hogwarts one year ago. While most attendees bowed their heads in solemn remembrance, the gravity of the situation was apparently lost on one guest in particular. Harry Potter arrived rudely late and was seen almost immediately disappearing into the castle, only to reappear again with fresh blood on his hands. A well-liked student with top marks seemed to be his target, who appeared shortly thereafter with a ruined face.</em>
</p><p>
  <em>Why did Harry assault a young, formerly handsome, innocent student? And why, this humble reporter asks, did he choose the most somber day of our year to do so?</em>
</p><p>
  <em>This incident harkens back to Mr. Potter’s disrespectful visit to Weasley’s Wizard Wheezes in Diagon Alley one month ago, where he laughed openly at a tacky and tasteless display made in the likeness of one of the Fallen Fifty.</em>
</p><p>
  <em>As if he hadn’t done enough damage in the fragile community, Mr. Potter was later seen slobbering drunk at the sordid Hog’s Head Inn in Hogsmeade, causing a scene and disparaging fellow patrons, including an undercover foreign diplomat from Lithuania on his first visit to Scotland.</em>
</p><p>
  <em>Is Harry finally spiraling out of control after he was outed as an exhibitionist phony? What will he do next?</em>
</p><p>Harry crumpled the paper and threw it into the fireplace. He was being watched everywhere he went. Head still pounding, Harry trudged upstairs and collapsed on his bed. Waking briefly, hours later, to the pitch blackness outside, Harry merely rolled over and slept through the night.</p><p>Somehow, several days passed, and still Harry lay in his bed. Some part of him felt that he deserved some sort of punishment, and resigning himself to his bed seemed fitting. In that time, he dreamt that each of the Fallen Fifty’s ghosts visited him one by one through his bedroom window and yelled at him for besmirching their memory, for letting them die in the first place, for not trading his own life for any of theirs. They were each so real to him, even the ones he hadn’t known, that when he heard a distant knocking on his front door one afternoon, Harry only half-woke to it, assuming it was another visitor from his past.</p><p>When the knocking persisted into his consciousness, Harry sat up.</p><p>It took him several minutes to disentangle himself from his sheets and he tripped on the stairs as a result of his left foot having fallen asleep. Harry opened his door groggily.</p><p>Mr. Weasley stood on Harry’s front porch.</p><p>Harry ran a hand through his knotted, greasy hair.</p><p>“Mr. Weasley.”</p><p>Mr. Weasley didn’t seem shocked or surprised by Harry’s haggard appearance, in only his underwear and a stained hoodie.</p><p>“Hello, Harry. May I come in?”</p><p>Harry stood aside numbly, too tired and disoriented to be worried that something might be wrong.</p><p>Mr. Weasley strode across the floor to Harry’s living room and sat on the couch. “Sit, Harry.”</p><p>Harry obeyed, not even noticing he was being ordered around in his own home. As he sat next to Mr. Weasley, Harry absently felt the stubble that had grown on his face and neck.</p><p>“I heard what happened,” Mr. Weasley said simply. Harry felt hungover all over again at the mere memory.</p><p>“You and everyone else,” Harry grumbled.</p><p>Mr. Weasley noticed a small stack of letters under an open window. “Ah, so you <em>have </em>been getting your mail.”</p><p>“I’ve been . . . busy.”</p><p>“Ginny wrote you several times, then she wrote to me. She’s been worried.”</p><p>A fresh pang of guilt struck at Harry’s heart. “I’m fine.”</p><p>Mr. Weasley raised his eyebrows at Harry, as if to say he severely doubted it.</p><p>“Harry, I know you have had far more than your fair share of loss. Your parents, Sirius, Dumbledore, Remus—”</p><p>“I know the list.”</p><p>“I only mean to say, I know, time and time again, that you’ve lost . . . several people you came to see as father figures.”</p><p>Harry avoided his gaze.</p><p>“So you likely don’t have anyone in your life to tell you what you need to hear.”</p><p>Harry looked at him, confused.</p><p>Mr. Weasley’s eyes wrinkled with the hint of a smile. “I’m here to give you some advice, whether you like it or not. As a father would.”</p><p>Feeling rather awkward, Harry fidgeted on the couch.</p><p>“Every single person volunteered that night, Harry. Everyone knew what they were getting into, what they were risking. And you can be sure of that, because plenty of people didn’t join in. No one with half a brain blames you. No one who was actually there blames you.”</p><p>Biting his tongue, Harry listened.</p><p>“I know you’re humble and you don’t want attention or praise for this, but I’m going to tell you anyway. You’re a hero, Harry. You are the reason Voldemort is gone, that we are living in peace now. You’re the bravest person I’ve ever met, and I knew Dumbledore <em>and </em>your father.</p><p>“You survived, Harry, and that is a miracle. Something to be celebrated, not feel guilty about.” He paused, and cleared his throat.</p><p>“I would not trade you for Fred.”</p><p>Harry look up at Mr. Weasley, stunned.</p><p>“Not because I don’t love him and miss him every second. But because, that’s not how things work. You can’t keep wishing you’d died instead. He’s gone, yes, but <em>you’re </em>here”—he put a hand on Harry’s shoulder—“and I am so grateful for that.”</p><p>Harry tried to swallow, but found it difficult.</p><p>“So it saddens me to see you acting like this. You shouldn’t spend any more time on this guilt. I would much rather see you <em>grieve</em>. Mourn your losses, but don’t blame yourself for them, do you understand? You are too important to too many people, including myself, to waste away in bed on what you think should’ve been.”</p><p>Harry looked down, ashamed, very aware of his filthy clothes, stubble, and tangled hair.</p><p>“You’ve been given the gift of a future, Harry, and you deserve it. Not everyone gets one. Share it with those who love you, like Ron and Hermione. Like Ginny.”</p><p>A tear finally fell down Harry’s cheek. He nodded, staring at his feet.</p><p>“Well. That’s all I came to say.” Mr. Weasley stood, checking his pockets. “I’ll see myself out, if that’s all right.”</p><p>Harry let Mr. Weasley get to the front door before he spoke.</p><p>“Mr. Weasley? Thanks. I—I know you didn’t have to come here and say all that, and you have enough to deal with, and your own kids to think about—”</p><p>Mr. Weasley smiled. “My love as a father is not exactly an exhaustible resource, Harry.”</p><p>He left, and Harry went upstairs to shower.</p>
  </div></div>
<a name="section0007"><h2>7. Chaser Versus Keeper</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Summary for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
            <p>Harry spectates the Quidditch final at Hogwarts between Gryffindor and Ravenclaw, where Ginny is the captain and lead Chaser. Harry also meets with Professor McGonagall to discuss Severus Snape's true allegiance.</p>
          </blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>The next day was the last Hogsmeade visit of the term. Harry had wondered if he should go—he and Ginny hadn’t made specific plans, but that was partly because they could no longer use their Extendable Ears, and partly because Harry had been acting like a Flobberworm for several days and hadn’t been checking his mail. And perhaps she was still angry with him.</p><p>Nevertheless, Harry decided to go to Hogsmeade; if Ginny was busy or didn’t want to see him, he could have a Butterbeer and leave. There were worse ways to spend a sunny afternoon. So Harry appeared outside the Hog’s Head Inn and walked through Hogsmeade among the crowds of students, looking for her.</p><p>“Harry!” called a girl. Harry turn hopefully, but it was Luna who was dodging people to get to him.</p><p>“Hi, Luna.”</p><p>“Harry! What are you doing here? The most wonderful thing’s happened! You’ve got to go to the castle, quick!”</p><p>“What?” Harry said, as he and Luna were jostled by the crowd walking up and down the street.</p><p>“I can’t believe she didn’t tell you—you’d better hurry!”</p><p>“What are you talking about?”</p><p>“Ginny! She—well, I don’t want to spoil it—just go!”</p><p>Harry turned on his heel and ran up the High Street anxiously, ignoring the perplexed looks on the faces he passed.</p><p>When he made it to the grounds, everything looked normal. There was no one around as most students were enjoying the warm weather in Hogsmeade. What had Luna been on about? Harry kicked himself for falling for what had clearly been some farce of Luna’s; she probably thought there was a herd of Flarglemonks on the grounds and didn’t want Harry to miss it.</p><p>But then something caught his eye just over the hill to the right—someone was flying over the Quidditch pitch. Was there a game today? Harry half-ran to the Quidditch pitch, and as he got closer, he saw there was only one person flying. Someone impossibly fast, a blur of crimson and gold—</p><p>Heart leaping, Harry sprinted the rest of the way and entered the pitch to see Ginny in her Quidditch robes barreling up and down the pitch, performing what looked like her full arsenal of tricks and dives. Only then did Harry spot an older witch sitting in the stands across from him. She appeared to be writing in a small notebook, and Harry’s stomach sank as he thought it might be Rita Skeeter—but this woman had long dark hair.</p><p>Harry watched as Ginny finished by shooting the Quaffle through the unguarded goalpost with such brutality that if there had been a Keeper there, they’d definitely be sporting a black eye.</p><p>“Brava, Ginny, well done!” called the witch. Ginny slowly descended through the air, dismounting gracefully in the middle of the pitch. The woman stood and walked onto the grass where Ginny was. “You are even better than I was told you’d be.” Her voice carried easily across the empty stadium.</p><p>“Thank you, Ms. Tredaway,” said Ginny breathlessly.</p><p>“I’ll of course have to report back to Jones and the team, and I’ll be back to watch you in action during the match against Ravenclaw, but I feel comfortable saying—<em>you’re in.”</em></p><p><em> “Really?” </em>Ginny launched herself on Ms. Tredaway, who seemed used to such aggressive affection, as she hugged Ginny back, laughing.</p><p>“Expect my owl in the next couple weeks. And—don’t make any summer plans. You’ll be practicing. A lot.”</p><p>Ms. Tredaway then spotted Harry over Ginny’s shoulder.</p><p>“Oh—it seems we’re not alone.”</p><p>Ginny spun around, and her face lit up more than it already was. She ran at Harry then, and Harry braced himself for his own forceful embrace.</p><p>“How did you know?” she asked, squeezing Harry.</p><p>“A little raven told me.”</p><p>“Harry Potter?” Ms. Tredaway asked, approaching them.</p><p>“Er—yes.”</p><p>“I cannot <em>tell </em>you what an honor it is to meet you.” She stuck her hand out confidently toward Harry, who shook it. “Zephyrine Tredaway, manager and trainer for the Holyhead Harpies.” Harry then enjoyed the rare pleasure of gaping, awestruck, at the person in front of him, as much as she was gaping at him. Harry looked between her and Ginny, still holding Ms. Tredaway’s hand.</p><p>“Are you—recruiting Ginny—”</p><p>“For the team, yes. We’re in the market for a Chaser. The headmistress wrote to me a couple weeks ago, saying I had to see this young woman fly—and she was right.”</p><p>Harry shook Ms. Tredaway’s hand with new fervor. “It’s <em>great </em>to meet you, too.”</p><p>After Ms. Tredaway left, Harry and Ginny walked several laps around the Quidditch pitch.</p><p>“This is so exciting!” Ginny was chattering, her broomstick slung across her shoulder, her hair swept into a sweaty, messy ponytail. “She’d written saying she wanted to recruit me, and asked if I’d do a tryout—I haven’t even told Mum and Dad—oh, Charlie’s gonna <em>die!”</em></p><p>Harry couldn’t stop grinning at her. “Did she say she was coming to the Ravenclaw match?”</p><p>“Yeah, she said she’s seen me do all the moves I might not get to do in a single match, you know, but now she wants to see how I work during a game.”</p><p>“Can I come?”</p><p>Ginny looked up at him, positively beaming. “I’m sure you can! Write to McGonagall!”</p><p>“I would’ve come to all your matches if I’d known I was allowed to.”</p><p>They walked in the sun-filled pitch, Harry remembering fondly all the games and practices he’d had there. Harry was so happy just then that the gloominess of the past several days seemed in the distant past.</p><p>“Ginny—I’m sorry for being such an idiot. I was—”</p><p>“I know. Don’t worry about it. I’m just glad you’re here now.”</p><p>Not for the first time, a wave of relief and gratitude rushed through Harry as a result of Ginny’s simple, unshakeable understanding.</p><p> </p><p> </p><p>Two weeks later, Harry made his way back to Hogwarts for the Quidditch House Cup final. He’d written to McGonagall, who had voiced her enthusiastic support for Harry’s attendance. She said he was to sit in the faculty box with her.</p><p>Ginny had made it clear how important this match was—Ravenclaw and Gryffindor were neck and neck to win, and this was Ginny’s only chance to win a House Cup as captain. Plus, she wanted to impress Ms. Tredaway, even though she was almost assuredly on the team. Harry understood each of these, and was unsurprised to have heard in Ginny’s letters leading up to the match that she had put her team through such rigorous practices and drills the likes of which hadn’t been seen by the Gryffindor Quidditch team since Oliver Wood was captain.</p><p>The sunny grounds were buzzing with excitement as Harry walked across the lawn. Students were running to the Quidditch pitch, scarlet and cobalt flags in hand to support their teams. Everyone was so animated and anxious that Harry made it all the way into the pitch without anyone noticing or stopping him. He climbed the wooden stairs toward the faculty box.</p><p>“Harry, m’boy! What a treat!” Professor Slughorn clapped him on the back as usual and insisted that Harry sit beside him. “Ready to see Miss Weasley in action? She’s a sight these days, I’ll tell you!”</p><p>Ms. Tredaway sat next to McGonagall behind Harry, and she waved when Harry spotted her.</p><p>Hagrid was seated at the back and made a great fuss to sidle several rows down and sit on Harry’s other side. Several teachers grumbled at the great obstruction now blocking their view.</p><p>“Oh, move if yeh don’ like it,” Hagrid growled. “All righ’, Harry?”</p><p>“All right,” Harry grinned. “You?”</p><p>“Oh, jus’ wonderful. Got a quintaped back at me cabin. Jus’ got it. Plannin’ on surprisin’ the seventh years in their N.E.W.T. final with it.”</p><p>Harry half-smiled, unsure how to take this news. He was happy for Hagrid, who had clearly found another giant, terrifying beast to care for, and he was sorry for Ginny, who’d have to deal with it.</p><p>Deep bass drums suddenly boomed throughout the pitch and the students filling the stands erupted into cheers and shouts. It was then that Harry spotted, on the right side of the pitch behind the Gryffindor posts, a large group of Gryffindor girls holding a giant sign that read <em>WEASLEY WINS. </em>Next to them, a group of Gryffindor boys held a much more vulgar sign that threatened Ginny would remove certain external organs from the Ravenclaw team.</p><p>“Someone go take down that sign!” yelled McGonagall from the top of the faculty box, but Harry saw the corner of her mouth twitch into a smile.</p><p>Finally, seven players in cobalt and bronze robes flew into the pitch to uproarious applause. The two players Harry assumed were the Beaters were two powerful-looking girls with matching braids. Ahead of them were what Harry took to be the Chasers, as they quickly huddled together, just the three of them, for a quick pep talk. Sailing above the others was the Seeker, waving to the blue-clad crowd on the left side of the pitch. And taking up the rear was a tall, burly, handsome bloke Harry recognized—</p><p>“<em>Robert Alvis </em>is the Ravenclaw Keeper?” Harry bellowed to no one in particular. Ginny had certainly failed to mention that in all her letters. The match suddenly had even higher stakes for Harry.</p><p>“Oh, yes,” squeaked Professor Flitwick in front of him. “Mr. Alvis is the best Keeper Ravenclaw’s seen in years!” Then he added, almost to himself, “Doesn’t seem quite fair, does it? Head Boy, Quidditch Captain, top marks, good looking . . .”</p><p>“He’s not <em>that </em>good looking,” grumbled Harry.</p><p>Alvis did a few laps around the pitch to increased cheering. Harry wondered absently what spell Quirrell had used when Harry was eleven to knock him off his broom. . . .</p><p>The Ravenclaw team was interrupted then by the sudden entrance of seven players dressed in scarlet and gold. Ginny was faster than anyone, shooting out of the dressing room like a canon ball. The pitch thundered with fresh cheering and screaming, and a large cohort started chanting “Weasley wins! Weasley wins!”</p><p>As the Gryffindor players flew around, Harry could make out the three people who had been on his team when he’d been captain: the Chaser Demelza Robins, and the Beaters Jimmy Peakes and Ritchie Coote. He also spotted Calliope Burnham, who was wisely already watching Madame Hooch on the ground with the chest of Quidditch balls, waiting for her to release the Snitch. Another Chaser flew next to Demelza, a blonde boy Harry only knew as Leander Hegg from Ginny’s letters. The Keeper flew beneath them all, a tall, lanky girl whose name Harry knew was Felicity Jackson.</p><p>“Captains, shake hands!” roared Madam Hooch from the ground.</p><p>The teams formed up, and Ginny stationed herself at the front of her team. Alvis came to the front of his.</p><p>The crowd seemed to have some knowledge of the charged relationship between the captains. As Ginny and Alvis stared each other down, refusing to shake hands, the pitch was alive with animalistic chanting.</p><p>“Shake!” ordered Madam Hooch again.</p><p>Ginny stuck her hand out for Alvis, who shook it roughly. He yanked her into his personal space, giving a sly smile—it seemed he might kiss her—and several students in the stands emitted wolfish whistles. Ginny wrenched herself free.</p><p>Madam Hooch brought her whistle to her lips, holding the Quaffle. Then, with a shrill <em>BLEEP!,</em> the Quaffle was launched into the air, followed shortly by the Bludgers and the Snitch, and the players dashed off in different directions like a swarm of angry bees.</p><p>“Weasley’s got the Quaffle—passed to Robins—to Hegg—”</p><p>Harry peered down at the front of the faculty box, where a student was commentating. She wore two purple buns on the top of her head and a Hufflepuff yellow t-shirt.</p><p>“Emily Heron,” said Hagrid. “A righ’ sight from Lee Jordan, eh?”</p><p>“Oh, and Deen stole it for Ravenclaw! Over to Michaels, back to Deen—Deen’s almost at the Gryffindor goalposts—he shoots—JACKSON BLOCKS IT!”</p><p>The Gryffindor side cheered, waving their scarlet flags for Felicity Jackson.</p><p>“Weasley picks up the Quaffle, dodges a Bludger—nice try, Young! Weasley passes to Hegg—no, wait—WEASLEY SCORES! IT WAS A BLUFF! TEN-ZERO TO GRYFFINDOR!”</p><p>The students in red jumped up and down like mad, screaming their heads off. The girls holding the <em>WEASLEY WINS </em>sign almost ripped the paper in their excitement.</p><p>Ginny didn’t take a victory lap; she immediately started hunting the Chaser who’d gotten the Quaffle and punched it out from underneath his arm.</p><p>“Weasley’s stolen the Quaffle from Michaels! She’s made one of her famous hairpin turns, she’s headed for the goalposts—look out, Alvis!—GRYFFINDOR SCORES AGAIN! TWENTY-ZERO!”</p><p>Harry cheered with everyone else; he’d never seen someone turn over the Quaffle so quickly, and he was pleased to see Alvis was already looking very disgruntled.</p><p>Alvis yelled something to his Beaters, and soon it was clear he’d told them to target their Bludgers exclusively on Ginny. But her speed and talent for maneuvering meant she swerved and dove around the Bludgers easily, taking passes from her other Chasers and even managing to shout a few orders of her own.</p><p>“Hegg with the Quaffle . . . here comes Weasley from behind—oh, a sneak pass to Weasley—YOUNG, YOU CAN’T DO THAT!”</p><p>One of the Ravenclaw Beaters had attacked Ginny’s broomstick with her club in an attempt to knock her off balance. Ginny took a penalty shot and scored.</p><p>“Deen with the Quaffle now—to Michaels—Brendt—Michaels—back to Deen—Robins takes it for Gryffindor! She’s going for it—ALVIS BLOCKS HER!”</p><p>A loud “<em>Oooooh!</em>” came from the Ravenclaw stands.</p><p>One of the Ravenclaw Chasers took possession and tore down the pitch. Ginny came at him from above like a hawk but was forced off course by both Bludgers, sent simultaneously by the Ravenclaw Beaters.</p><p>“RAVENCLAW SCORES! TWENTY-TEN TO GRYFFINDOR!”</p><p>Professor Flitwick screeched with glee, and Felicity Jackson kicked the goalpost in frustration.</p><p>“Hegg with the Quaffle—nice jump move! Passes to Weasley—SOMEONE REMIND YATES HOW TO PLAY QUIDDITCH!”</p><p>The other Ravenclaw Beater had swung her club with barbaric force right at Ginny’s head, who had ducked just in time. Ginny scored another penalty shot. It was becoming apparent that the Ravenclaw team had been instructed by their captain to take Ginny out of the game by any means necessary.</p><p>Jimmy Peakes and Ritchie Coote quickly coordinated on protecting Ginny. Harry noticed Jimmy knock a Bludger more than once toward Alvis when the players were nowhere near about to score.</p><p>“Weasley’s coming down the middle of the pitch—crikey, she’s fast—Peakes and Coote flanking her—nice block, Coote! WEASLEY SCORES! FORTY-TEN!”</p><p>This formation worked for several more plays, with some variations, until the score was seventy to ten.</p><p>“Michaels with the Quaffle for Ravenclaw, to Brendt, come on, now—all three of them are getting close—oh—STOOGING!” All three Ravenclaw Chasers had rushed into the scoring area at once to confuse Felicity. Madam Hooch blew her whistle, calling the foul, and Ginny took the penalty shot and scored.</p><p>“Michaels in possession, and—I don’t believe it—Weasley’s stolen the Quaffle again! Here she comes—she reverse passes to Robins, then it’s back to Weasley—FOUL! BLAGGING!” Deen had grabbed Ginny’s broom tail, trying to slow her down. Ginny scored another penalty shot. The Gryffindors were now leading ninety to ten.</p><p>Hagrid roared above everyone else’s cheers, and Harry glanced back at Ms. Tredaway, who was smiling and scribbling furiously.</p><p>Alvis then tried something new—as Ginny came at him again, he began flying in a speedy figure-eight in front of the posts, effectively blocking all three posts at once. Ginny tried for the left post but Alvis’s broomstick knocked it out of the way. This was effective for a while until Ginny figured out she could make her own figure-eight and time her shots better. The crowd watched with held breath as the two of them performed their odd duet, then the Gryffindor stands were deafening as Ginny finally snuck the Quaffle past Alvis. This worked several more times, and the score quickly reached one-hundred and twenty to ten.</p><p>The game had become more of a one-on-one battle between Ginny and Alvis—the other players seemed superfluous. Alvis was a strong enough Keeper than only Ginny seemed to be able to score against him, and none of the Ravenclaw players except Alvis seemed able to stop Ginny. After Alvis abandoned the Double-Eight Loop, he tried simply holding on to his broom with one hand and a foot, reaching his other two limbs to block the posts.</p><p>“Ooh, Alvis is going for the Starfish and Stick! Let’s see if it works—YES! Possession, Ravenclaw!”</p><p>Alvis was massive enough that his new strategy worked, until Ginny stole the Quaffle once again, hurtled back down the pitch, and lunged at him as if to punch him in the nose. He flinched and she scored. Harry laughed loudly.</p><p>“THE TRANSYLVANIAN TACKLE! I haven’t seen that outside of professional Quidditch! Not illegal unless you make contact, of course. . . .”</p><p>Felicity only let one other Quaffle through, and the Gryffindors soon led one-hundred and eighty to twenty.</p><p>“TIME OUT!” Alvis called from the left side of the pitch.</p><p>Both teams huddled on opposite sides, and Harry didn’t like the look on Alvis’s face. The game resumed two minutes later and now the Ravenclaw Seeker was swooping at Ginny at every turn like an angry seagull, blocking her path and forcing her to swerve out of a play. Harry saw what was happening—Ravenclaw couldn’t win at this point in the game even if their Seeker caught the Snitch, so Alvis had recruited him as another line of defense until the point margin was smaller.</p><p>Calliope Burnham was still scanning the skies, far above the commotion—if she caught the Snitch, Alvis’s new ploy wouldn’t matter.</p><p>The Ravenclaw Beaters now divided their attention between Calliope and Ginny, rocketing merciless Bludgers their way. So Jimmy and Ritchie split up too, with Jimmy protecting Calliope and Ritchie covering Ginny.</p><p>As Michaels came down the pitch with the Quaffle, Calliope dove right in front of Felicity to avoid a Bludger and in the confusion, Michaels scored, to loud applause from the Ravenclaw section.</p><p>“Weasley with the Quaffle—lots of obstacles in the way! Ooh, that was close! Look out there, Dawes!” The Ravenclaw Seeker had plummeted in front of Ginny, making her spin wildly out of the way and drop the Quaffle. “Deen’s got the Quaffle! To Brendt—to Michaels—WATCH OUT FOR THAT BLUDGER, JACKSON! RAVENCLAW SCORES AGAIN!”</p><p>As the Ravenclaw Chasers had advanced on Felicity, one of the Ravenclaw Beaters had sent a Bludger at Felicity, and she instinctively dove out of its way instead of blocking the shot.</p><p>Instantly, Dawes, the Ravenclaw Seeker, zoomed back above the fray to look for the Snitch.</p><p>“The score is one-hundred and eighty to forty with Gryffindor in the lead! With less than a one-hundred-and-fifty-point margin, it’s anyone’s game, folks! Who’s going to take home the Cup?”</p><p>The crowd’s cheers were ear-splitting now; even McGonagall was screaming at the top of her lungs. Everyone’s eyes seemed to be on the two Seekers circling the pitch. Harry’s heart raced as he too looked around for a glint of gold.</p><p>Then, several things happened very quickly. From high above, Dawes dove suddenly and in horror Harry saw the Snitch flitting around by the Ravenclaw goal posts. Calliope dove a second later, but it was a second too late—Dawes was pulling away—</p><p>Below, Ginny had the Quaffle and was bolting toward the Ravenclaw goal posts as well. A Ravenclaw Beater clobbered a Bludger with prodigious force straight at Ginny—she never saw it coming—and with a sickening <em>crunch</em> it collided into her shoulder, sending her to hang upside down from her broomstick, holding on only by the backs of her knees.</p><p>Harry jumped to his feet as the whole crowd let out another “<em>Ooooh!</em>”</p><p>But miraculously, Ginny still held the Quaffle with her good arm—and her broom was so fast that she was still racing toward Alvis, who had just been distracted by Dawes and Calliope diving toward him—the Ravenclaw Chasers crashed into Ginny as a unit, their broomsticks locked, but Ginny threw the Quaffle—Madam Hooch blew her whistle—the Quaffle sailed through the rightmost goalpost—and Dawes’s fingers closed around the Golden Snitch.</p><p>A confused and tense silence blanketed the crowd—who had won?</p><p>Madam Hooch yelled into the quiet, explaining her blown whistle. “Foul! Blurting!” She pointed to the Ravenclaw Chasers, who were still tangled up together. They had illegally locked their broomsticks together to block Ginny.</p><p>Madam Hooch stalked across the field toward Emily the commentator, who looked very serious. They bent their heads over what Harry saw was a pair of Omnioculars. They were replaying what had just happened.</p><p>“It’s gotta be Gryffindor,” said Hagrid nervously at Harry’s side. Harry was watching Ginny, who flew, upright now, by the sidelines refusing assistance for her dislocated shoulder. All the players were frozen where they hovered on their brooms.</p><p>Finally, after several stressful minutes, Emily cleared her throat. “Dawes caught the Snitch, making the score one-hundred and ninety to one-hundred and eighty, Ravenclaw.”</p><p>The Ravenclaw side erupted in cheers and yells.</p><p>“However, Weasley scored one second before, causing Dawes to only tie up the game. <em>And, </em>while Weasley’s Quaffle went through the goalpost <em>after </em>Madam Hooch called the foul, she had released the Quaffle <em>before </em>the whistle blew, so those ten points still count.”</p><p>The Gryffindors collapsed into raucous cheering and hollering.</p><p>Emily spoke again, more reverentially. “The game’s tied up with a foul from Ravenclaw. It all comes down to whether Weasley can make this penalty shot.”</p><p>Everyone was on their feet as Ginny directed her broom back to the pitch and faced Alvis. Her shoulder was grotesquely out of place and she seemed to have lost the ability to use that arm—the one she threw with. Her face was ghostly white.</p><p>“Can’t someone else take the shot? Look at her!” cried McGonagall. But she knew just as well as Harry that if the target of the foul was a Chaser, that Chaser had to take the shot.</p><p>The Ravenclaws behind the goalposts began chanting Alvis’s name, first low and deep, then building as Ginny squared up with the Quaffle.</p><p>The pitch fell silent except for the Ravenclaws’ chanting. Harry forgot how to breathe as he watched Ginny. She seemed like she was going to faint and fall off her broom any second. She clutched the Quaffle in her left hand and swayed dangerously—the entire pitch gasped.</p><p>But Harry could almost make out something other than pain on Ginny’s face. She was piercing Alvis with a menacing gaze, while he looked at her piteously, mockingly.</p><p>“C’mon, Gin,” Harry whispered.</p><p>Ginny raised the Quaffle, and Alvis tensed. Ginny charged him—he dove to the right—and she hastily switched hands and with a loud grunt shot the Quaffle with her bad arm straight through the leftmost post.</p><p>The pitch came crashing down in thunderous roars.</p><p>“SHE’S DONE IT!” Emily shrieked. “WEASLEY’S SEALED THE GAME, AND GRYFFINDOR’S WON THE HOUSE CUP!”</p><p>The Gryffindors in the stands rushed onto the field and chaos took over the entire pitch.</p><p>Hagrid lifted Harry right off his feet and swung him around in mad delight. The other six Gryffindor players converged on Ginny, burying her in a group hug, which was then engulfed by the other Gryffindor students as the players descended to the ground.</p><p>Harry spotted Alvis across the pitch, already walking toward the dressing rooms. Harry hoped it was the last he’d ever see of him.</p><p>Madam Hooch elbowed her way through the crowd and Ginny emerged on someone’s shoulders hoisting the enormous, silver trophy cup over her head with her good arm. The pitch started chanting “Weasley wins! Weasley wins!” Harry went hoarse with yelling.</p><p>After the match, Professor McGonagall invited Harry to her office for a quick cup of tea. Harry had really wanted to see Ginny, but he knew she had to go to the hospital wing first, and he reasoned that she’d likely be visited by dozens of students wanting to wish her congratulations.</p><p>Harry followed McGonagall to the third floor of the castle and they walked to the gargoyle guarding the spiral staircase up to the headmistress’s office.</p><p>“Punctilious,” said McGonagall, and the gargoyle slide aside.</p><p>Harry could remember every time he’d visited the office to see Dumbledore, and it was odd now to follow McGonagall inside.</p><p>“Have a seat, Potter.” McGonagall sat at the large desk in the center of the circular room, and Harry sat across from her. A tray of tea and biscuits appeared from the tip of McGonagall’s wand, and Harry helped himself.</p><p>“I trust your transition to life after Hogwarts is going smoothly,” McGonagall said pleasantly.</p><p>“Overall, yeah. Auror training is no joke.”</p><p>“I hear you are doing exceedingly well, particularly in magical combat. I know you cannot share details, but I’ve spoken to your instructor and he’s told me about your progress. I’m not surprised—you were a formidably talented investigator in your time here. Even when you shouldn’t have been,” she added wryly.</p><p>Harry was very pleased to hear that Auror Robards had reported positively about him—there were no grades or tests in Auror training until the very end, and while Harry knew he was doing well, this proved Robards thought so too, even if he didn’t want to admit it to Harry himself.</p><p>McGonagall slid a copy of the <em>Daily Prophet </em>aside on her desk. “I’m sorry for all of the Rita Skeeter business. Believe me, I’d stop her if I could.”</p><p>“It’s all right. I’m used to it by now.”</p><p>McGonagall adjusted her glasses and faced Harry more squarely.</p><p>“Potter, I was wondering if you’d ever be interested in coming back sometime as a . . . guest lecturer for Defense Against the Dark Arts. I know you’ll be very busy as an Auror and you couldn’t teach full time, but your knowledge would be very useful, particularly to the older students.”</p><p>Harry smiled, very flattered. “Sure, professor.”</p><p>Looking around the office, not much had changed. Many of the wondrous, golden instruments that had occupied the shelves and floorspace during Dumbledore’s time were still there, although Fawkes’s perch was missing. Along the walls, each of the former headmasters’ portraits hung in order. Dumbledore’s portrait sat almost directly behind McGonagall’s head, beaming down at him through those famous half-moon spectacles. Yet something seemed amiss. . . .</p><p>“Wait—where’s Snape’s portrait?” Harry asked.</p><p>Sipping her cup of tea, McGonagall raised her eyebrows in surprise.</p><p>“He abandoned his post. His portrait’s been removed.”</p><p>“But why? He was still headmaster, wasn’t he?”</p><p>McGonagall put down her tea cup. “When a headmaster abandons his post, he is disgraced and excluded from memory.”</p><p>Harry gaped at her. “But you included him in the memorial!”</p><p>“I most certainly did not,” said McGonagall, blinking.</p><p>Harry thought back—he had only assumed Snape’s name was on one of those benches. He hadn’t actually seen it for himself.</p><p>“But you don’t understand—Snape was on Dumbledore’s side—he had to leave, he—”</p><p>“I understand why you might think that, Potter, but Snape showed his true colors in the end.”</p><p>“Yeah, he did!” Harry shot up, startling McGonagall. “I can show you!” He marched to the cabinet that had held Dumbledore’s Pensieve and wrenched the doors open, hoping the Pensieve was still in there. It was. “Come see for yourself.”</p><p>Perplexed, McGonagall approached the cabinet warily. “These are private memories, Potter.”</p><p>“Didn’t you trust Dumbledore?” Harry pressed, and then, when her expression hadn’t changed, “Do you trust me?”</p><p>McGonagall’s face softened only slightly.</p><p>“Please, you have to see this.” Harry tapped the edge of the Pensieve with his wand, calling to mind the memories he wanted McGonagall to see.</p><p>With a final glance at Harry, McGonagall bent over the silvery cloud filling the bowl. Harry stood by, remembering imperfectly what McGonagall was seeing perfectly: a young Snape meeting Harry’s mother as a child, their fraught friendship, his love for her, and as an adult, Snape trying to stop Voldemort from killing Harry and his parents, in order to save Lily’s life. How he had vowed his loyalties to Dumbledore, working as a spy, and reluctantly agreeing to kill an already-dying Dumbledore to spare Draco Malfoy’s soul and outwardly prove his loyalties to Voldemort, allowing him to learn more of Voldemort’s final plan. These memories Snape had passed to Harry, allowing Harry to finally defeat Voldemort.</p><p>After a while, McGonagall straightened from the Pensieve, her eyes staring far into the distance. She was silent for some time. A golden instrument in a far corner tinkled like a wind chime in the breeze of an open window.</p><p>Finally, she turned to Harry. “Where did you get these?” she whispered.</p><p>“Snape gave them to me himself, before he died.”</p><p>McGonagall strode back around to her desk and slumped into her seat.</p><p>“I must admit . . . I do not think I have misjudged someone so woefully before in my entire life.”</p><p>“You weren’t the only one,” said Harry, taking his seat again across from her.</p><p>McGonagall seemed to be considering something.</p><p>“We must add his name to the memorial.”</p><p>“And his portrait?” Harry asked hopefully.</p><p>“I will pull it from storage and see it restored immediately.”</p><p>“What?!” called a red-bearded man in a portrait to Harry’s left. The brass nameplate underneath read “Brutus Scrimgeour.” Harry wondered if he was any relation to Rufus Scrimgeour.</p><p>“That greasy bat? Absolutely not!” Scrimgeour cried.</p><p>“You hold your tongue or I’ll have you moved to the broom cupboard!” cried McGonagall.</p><p>Thirty minutes later, Harry went back down the stairs on his way to the hospital wing, wondering if Ginny’s fans would’ve cleared off yet. Halfway down the corridor, he was yanked into an empty classroom and instantly set upon by what seemed to be a small mountain lion.</p><p>Her mouth was on his, preventing him from speaking, as she pinned him against the closed door.</p><p>“Did you see me?” she breathed between kisses, roving all over his body. “I was—<em>wicked</em>—I knew Alvis would—underestimate me—and dive right—“</p><p>“You were amazing,” Harry managed, still recovering from his abduction. He got a better look at her in the dim candlelight; her right arm was in a sling.</p><p>“You’ve already been released from the hospital wing?”</p><p>“Oh, yeah, easy fix. I just have to rest my arm for about a week,” said Ginny, kissing Harry’s neck. “I’ll have—full use of it—soon—” and she reached into the front pocket of his jeans with her good arm.</p><p>“How did you know I was coming down the hall?” asked Harry, still trying to get answers before succumbing to her wiles. It felt like Ginny was constantly pulling him beneath the surface of warm water.</p><p>Ginny pulled the Marauder’s Map out from her back pocket and waggled her eyebrows at him.</p><p>“I thought I told you only to use that for emergencies,” scolded Harry.</p><p>“This <em>is</em> an emergency.” And she was kissing him again, ravenously, easily overpowering him despite an injured arm, and Harry found himself unable—unwilling—to resist.</p>
  </div></div>
<a name="section0008"><h2>8. A Sirius Gift</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Summary for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
            <p>Ginny announces exciting professional news to her family that displeases Mrs. Weasley. Harry receives a certain repaired vehicle that had once belonged to his late godfather.</p>
          </blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>A little over a month later, everyone was back at the Burrow. The summer had grown surprisingly hot and it was too uncomfortable to be outside, unless you were flying on a broomstick with the wind in your hair. Despite the stuffiness in the Burrow, everyone was in good spirits.</p><p>They all sat down to dinner that night celebrating various things: Ginny had finished at Hogwarts, Harry and Ron had advanced to the Magical Jurisprudence course in Auror training, and Hermione had just announced to the table that she’d submitted her very first piece of legislation at the Department for the Regulation and Control of Magical Creatures: the Betterment of Elvish Livelihood and Conditions at Home Act.</p><p>“<em>Belch</em>, Hermione? Really?” chuckled Ron.</p><p>“How many times do I have to say it? It’s the B.E.L.C.H. Act.”</p><p>“Yeah, all right.” Ron ate his last forkful of roast beef and belched.</p><p>“Well, I have an announcement, too,” said Ginny, putting down her own fork. The table looked over at her. “I’ve been recruited . . .” she paused for dramatic effect, “to play for the Holyhead Harpies. I start practice next month.”</p><p>Everyone except Harry gawked at her in silence. Then Mr. Weasley gave a loud whoop and started laughing, and the whole table exploded in excited chatter.</p><p>“My daughter, a professional Quidditch player!” exclaimed Mr. Weasley.</p><p>“Have you met Gwenog Jones, Ginny?” Ron asked.</p><p>“I’d heard they were looking for a new Chaser,” said Percy.</p><p>“That’ll involve a fair bit of traveling, won’t it?” asked Hermione.</p><p>George leaned over the table. “Can you get us tickets?”</p><p>“<em>Have you met Gwenog Jones?”</em></p><p>Ginny tried to answer everyone’s questions, and as she promised to get Ron an autograph, Harry noticed that Mrs. Weasley was very silent at the end of the table.</p><p>“Mum, what do you think?” Ginny asked tentatively.</p><p>“Well, I just thought that, after school, you might—” Mrs. Weasley gave the tiniest glance at Harry, then lowered her voice at Ginny. “We can talk about this later, dear.”</p><p>The rest of dinner was quiet and stilted after that, and Percy tried to quell some of the tension by talking at length about a fleet of Russian snow plows that had been enchanted to travel unmanned over eighty miles an hour and imported illegally into northern Scotland, terrorizing Muggle vacationers.</p><p>After dinner, Mrs. Weasley pointedly asked Ginny to help her with the dishes, and Harry, Ron, and Hermione went into the garden where it had cooled off a bit for a game of Exploding Snap. Harry sat underneath the open kitchen window. Under the running water and the occasional exploding card, Harry could just make out the conversation inside.</p><p>“Of course I’m proud of you, dear, I suppose I just have some concerns. . . . Won’t it be dangerous? I mean, House Quidditch is one thing, but these are hardened professionals. And won’t this take you away for months at a time?”</p><p>“I’ll have certain weekends off,” said Ginny, “and you all can visit me.”</p><p>“I just thought, after all the excitement of the past few years, that you’d be looking to . . . settle down.”</p><p>There was a charged silence as someone in the kitchen scrubbed a plate too hard. Harry caught Hermione’s eye, who was also listening.</p><p>“So my brothers can all have careers, but I can’t?”</p><p>“No, that’s not at all what I’m saying. I only want to make sure you’ve thought about how you’ll fit in <em>other </em>plans.”</p><p>Ginny slapped the wet sponge on the counter and stomped off. Ron played a card and it exploded, setting his shirt on fire.</p><p>After he helped put Ron out, Harry went inside to find Ginny. She wasn’t in her room, but Harry spotted her through the window, flying in circles over the trees beyond the orchard. Harry went back out to the garden and fetched an old broomstick from the shed. Kicking off, Harry flew the rickety broom toward Ginny. She was grazing the tops of the trees, smacking the highest branches angrily with the tops of her feet as she passed them.</p><p>“Hey,” Harry called.</p><p>“Hey.”</p><p>“You all right?”</p><p>“Oh, yeah. Just found out I’ve dashed my mum’s hopes and dreams for my future, that’s all.”</p><p>“She just wants the best for you,” Harry risked saying. Ginny looked like she wanted to punch something, and Harry was the closest target.</p><p>“She wants me to be married and have a load of babies—I haven’t even gotten my N.E.W.T. scores back yet and she’s already begging for grandchildren!”</p><p>Harry felt his face heat up. They’d never broached this topic before.</p><p>“Erm—I don’t really think she expects you to—”</p><p>“I want to live my life!” she retorted, shouting. “‘After all the excitement of the past few years. . .’” she mimicked. “Yes, after all that, I want to see the world and have a great big, gushing bloody nose or a fat lip during a Quidditch game in the Ukraine and fly over Iceland and see what the big deal is in Paris. . . .”</p><p>“You want to have a fat lip?” Harry teased.</p><p>“You know what I mean. I want to have experiences. I want to <em>live.”</em></p><p>Harry grinned at her as she kicked the top of a pine tree, scaring a crow out of it.</p><p>“You will.”</p><p>The selfish part of Harry wanted Ginny to stay, to eat crisps and laugh in his bed every night, but the selfless part of him wanted her to go and have the experiences she so longed for. Holding on to her felt as futile as trying to tie down a dragon. And sometimes he wondered if he wasn’t fighting fate trying to keep her close.</p><p>They floated in small circles together in silence as the sky turned to a burnished pink.</p><p>“Do you think I should go?” Ginny asked, peering toward the horizon.</p><p>“Yes, I do. In fact, I’ll be mad if you don’t.”</p><p>Ginny brightened.</p><p>“C’mere,” Harry said warmly, teasingly. “I’ll give you a fat lip.”</p><p>She went to him laughing, and in front of the setting sun, their tiny silhouettes over the woods would have appeared as one to anyone watching from below.</p><p>The next weekend, Harry and Hermione visited the Burrow again, having gone back during the week for training and work. Ginny received her N.E.W.T. grades first thing Saturday morning, and she and Hermione called Ron and Harry down, who clamored into the kitchen in their pajamas. She’d earned “Outstanding” marks in Care of Magical Creatures, Charms, and Potions, and “Exceeds Expectations” in Astronomy, Defense Against the Dark Arts, Herbology, and Transfiguration.</p><p>“An ‘Outstanding’ in Potions?” Ginny laughed, reading over the parchment. “Slughorn’s mad, my Polyjuice Potion had the consistency of congealed snot.”</p><p>“He was always fond of you,” said Ron, looking over Ginny’s shoulder. “Ah, you dropped Divination? Foolish girl. Now how will you predict your untimely death?”</p><p>“According to Mum it’s during my first professional Quidditch match,” said Ginny darkly. “She thinks I’m going to get clobbered immediately.”</p><p>“You’ll be fine, Ginny,” reassured Hermione.</p><p>“Tell <em>her </em>that.”</p><p>Ron and Harry went back upstairs to change just as Mrs. Weasley entered the kitchen and began making breakfast.</p><p>As Harry sifted through his pile of clothes, a book slipped off Ron’s bed onto the floor.</p><p>“Oh, I’ll take that—” Ron made a flustered grab for the book, which made Harry dive for it faster and hold it out of his reach.</p><p>“<em>The Steamy Wizard’s Guide for Steaming Up A Witch</em>?” Harry read dramatically, then he climbed onto the bed to evade Ron’s grasp. He opened the book at random—it released a plume of actual steam.</p><p>“Harry, give it back!”</p><p>Harry had planned to tease Ron by giving a theatrical reading from the book, but he was shocked at the detailed illustrations he found inside—and he was far too embarrassed to read aloud the few very specific words he scanned. He slammed the book shut.</p><p>“Had your fun?” Ron asked crossly, snatching the book from Harry’s lax grip.</p><p>Harry blinked and got off the bed. The illustrations seemed burned into his brain. “Are you and H—”</p><p>“No, thankyouverymuch,” Ron blustered as he shoved the book under his mattress. His face was bright red, but he held himself tall like he was determined to retain his dignity. “I just—want to be prepared, that’s all.”</p><p>The shock was wearing off, and Harry found himself grinning again. “I’m sure she'll be glad to know you studied for once.” And Ron smacked him hard with a pillow.</p><p>June melted into July and the summer passed by almost as quickly as the last. While Ginny, like Ron, still technically lived at the Burrow, she spent quite a few nights at Harry’s cottage throughout the month of June. Ginny told her mother she was staying at Hermione’s, but Harry would have bet quite a few Galleons that Mrs. Weasley wasn’t buying it. If she had opinions on it, however, she wasn’t expressing them, and so the two of them continued on as usual. They knew Ginny’s training started soon and that they wouldn’t be able to see each other for months, including both of their birthdays, and both were ardently interested in making up for future lost time.</p><p>One July morning at the Burrow, Ginny received a large parcel in the mail, delivered by no less than five owls. She unwrapped it in the kitchen as everyone watched, and she let out a scream: Inside the long, slender box was a brand new Air Wave Gold, a state-of-the-art racing broom whose sleek bristles gleamed golden by the light through the kitchen window. It had a built-in compass in the handle, cutting-edge shock absorption, and was designed specifically to handle hairpin turns. Ginny had been admiring ads for it all summer in the<em> Daily Prophet</em>.</p><p>Ginny took it out of the box, running a hand along the handle. “It’s so fast it’s supposed to give you a nosebleed!” she said like that was the greatest news she’d ever heard.</p><p>“Ginny, look at this!” Hermione took a note out of the box and read it. “It’s from the manufacturers of the broom, they heard you’re the new recruit for the team that’s favorited to win this season, and they want you to be the face of their broom!”</p><p>“I’ve never had my own broomstick before,” Ginny said in awe, inspecting it more closely.</p><p>“Can I have a go on it?” asked Ron.</p><p>“Blimey, Ron, let her try it first,” said Mr. Weasley, chuckling.</p><p>She immediately ran outside, mounted the broom, and zoomed into the air, and she didn’t come in until her mother called her in for dinner.</p><p>A week later, Mr. and Mrs. Weasley and Harry saw Ginny off for her first round of Quidditch practices in Northern Wales, where she’d be for the next few months. Ginny was still cross with her mother for not seeming as excited as the rest of the family, but when they dropped her off, Mrs. Weasley hugged Ginny and whispered something in her ear, something that made Ginny smile and nod.</p><p>Harry was also seeing less of Ron, as he was spending more and more time with Hermione during his leisure hours. So, when Harry wasn’t training or studying, he would pay a visit the Burrow. Mr. Weasley had invited Harry to help him with a bit of remodeling and landscaping around the house, though Harry suspected at least part of Mr. Weasley’s motivations was giving Mrs. Weasley some fresh company. She was struggling with the recent emptiness in the house.</p><p>So far, Harry and Mr. Weasley had pruned the garden, weeded the orchard, planted several lemon trees, and built a brand new broom shed, and they had just started on some renovations inside the house. It was hard work,of which only some could be done with magic, and Harry enjoyed it—he needed a distraction from Ginny’s very noticeable absence in his life.</p><p>Ginny was so busy with practice she could hardly write to him, and Harry had only received two quickly scribbled messages from her with little detail. He only knew that her other teammates were really nice, Gwenog Jones was a bit off her rocker, and that practices were grueling.</p><p>As Harry ripped up baseboards in the living room of the Burrow one hot afternoon, Mr. Weasley popped his head in.</p><p>“Harry, can I borrow you for a moment?”</p><p>Harry followed him out of the living room, removing his gloves, and into the garage where Mr. Weasley tinkered with Muggle artifacts and vehicles. In the center of the dusty floor was a mysterious shape covered by an old sheet.</p><p>“I don’t know if you remember, but I told you how Ted Tonks had given me this—or what was left of it, really—and I kept it here to work on.” Mr. Weasley fiddled with an old computer mouse.</p><p>“It was almost in pieces after its last trip, but I’ve been fixing it up for a while now, and I think it’s back in operation. I even checked with Percy, and it’s legal to drive—or fly, as long as you’re not seen, of course. There are still a couple things I want to double check, but, Hagrid and I thought you might like to have it.”</p><p>He pulled the sheet off to reveal a very familiar looking motorcycle. It gleamed in the sun coming in through the window as if it were brand new.</p><p>Harry touched the handlebars tentatively.</p><p>“Oh—here. Sirius had a jacket as well. He never wore a helmet, big surprise, but I scrounged one up for you. And you’ll need to apply for a license, of course.” Mr. Weasley held a frayed leather jacket and a black motorcycle helmet out to Harry, who took them. “Consider it a birthday present.”</p><p>Along with the Invisibility Cloak and the Marauder’s Map, it was the most meaningful—and, honestly, <em>coolest</em>—present Harry had ever received. He ran his hands over the seat and the engine and the headlight, then looked up at Mr. Weasley in awe. “Thank you.”</p><p>Mr. Weasley nodded, eyes twinkling. “I remember James told me one time he and Sirius got chased on this thing by Muggle policemen after they were caught speeding. Apparently they got cornered in an alleyway, but managed to escape by flying right over their heads.” Mr. Weasley chuckled to himself. “I would’ve liked to see that.”</p><p>Harry looked at the motorcycle again. His father had ridden it, too?</p><p>“Now, don’t go running off with this thing until I’ve finished looking it over. The drive chain might be too loose still, and I’ve thought about installing a cloaking device. . . .”</p><p>But Harry wasn’t listening. He’d swung a leg over and sat astride it, feeling the cool metal and warm leather beneath his fingers. It seemed alive somehow, as if some part of Sirius still resided in it, like a soul. As Harry looked out the garage window, he hoped Mr. Weasley wouldn’t need much longer with his final adjustments—Harry was impatient to drive this thing a very long way north. Or maybe he’d fly. . . .</p><p> </p><p> </p><p>As it happened, it only took Mr. Weasley one more day to finish his final inspection, and the next afternoon a very excited Mr. Weasley and a rather anxious Mrs. Weasley watched Harry take off down the dirt road leading out of Ottery St. Catchpole.</p><p>Mrs. Weasley didn’t seem to have known about the motorcycle and she was certain Harry would immediately crash and get injured with no one around to help him, but she conceded that it was a family heirloom and it would have been wrong for her husband to keep it from Harry.</p><p>It didn’t take long for Harry to get the hang of driving a motorcycle—after all, he’d managed to ride on hippogriffs, thestrals, and even dragons. After only a few miles, driving it felt second nature to him. While it wasn’t quite like flying on a broomstick (though he wondered how flying this thing would compare) as he traveled over bumpy roads and adjusted to the more cumbersome weight, it did have the same freeing effect on Harry’s spirits.</p><p>After a few more miles, Harry returned to the Burrow to report back to Mr. Weasley how it rode. Then Harry took it home convinced he was now the noisiest neighbor in the village, since the only real competition was Mr. Merryweather singing ballads at the top of his lungs in the yard while he gardened in his underwear.</p><p>The motorcycle was too impractical to drive the long distance to London every day for Auror training, so Harry still used Floo Powder for that, but he drove his motorcycle almost every evening through Dartmoor, getting the feel of the machine on open roads with little traffic. On foggy weekend mornings he deployed the flying mechanism and soared over the clouds, unseen. This felt the most like flying on a broomstick—just that the “broomstick” now was a bit wider and made a great deal more noise. Harry wouldn’t mind not having a broomstick if he could do this. It was certainly a great deal easier to control than Mr. Weasley’s faulty old Ford Anglia.</p><p>One Friday afternoon in August, Harry took his motorcycle down the main road by the water in Plymouth to test his driving skills, zipping past people on the sidewalk and navigating around bicycles and cars with increasing ease, enjoying the anonymity of the helmet, covering his face.</p><p>When Harry made it back onto his street, he saw a very welcome sight indeed—Ron and Hermione were standing inside his garden gate. Harry roared down the rest of the way, pulled into the walkway, and killed the engine.</p><p>“What the hell is <em>that?” </em>Ron exclaimed excitedly as Harry removed his helmet.</p><p>“Sirius’s old bike. Fancy a go?”</p><p>“Would I!” Ron immediately took the helmet from Harry, but Hermione held him back.</p><p>“Ron, those things are really dangerous if you don’t know what you’re doing.”</p><p>“Let him sit on it at least, Hermione,” Harry said, laughing.</p><p>She sighed. “Oh, fine.”</p><p>Ron mounted the motorcycle and pretended to rev the handlebars.</p><p>“It’s in perfect condition! But didn’t it crash on the way to Ted Tonks’s house?”</p><p>“Your dad fixed it back up. I don’t think your mum knew.”</p><p>“Oh, then I get to hear about <em>that </em>when I go back home.”</p><p>“It is very handsome, isn’t it?” Hermione admitted, running a hand over the back of the seat.</p><p>“Hop on!” said Ron.</p><p>“No, I shouldn’t—”</p><p>“I have the key,” Harry said, smiling. “It’s not going anywhere.”</p><p>Hermione climbed on behind Ron, holding on to his middle tightly as if they were ripping down the highway at ninety miles an hour, which Ron seemed to enjoy greatly. “I’ve never been a fan of things like this. Broomsticks, Hippogriffs . . . Ron, let’s see you with the helmet.”</p><p>Ron put on the helmet and did a goofy little dance, making Harry and Hermione laugh.</p><p>“Very dashing,” said Hermione, lifting the visor and smiling at him.</p><p>“Hey—not that I’m not pleased to see you, but—what’re you doing here?” Harry asked.</p><p>Ron was fiddling with some of the dials on the bike. “We were both heading back to the Burrow from London and I realized Hermione hadn’t seen your place yet, so we thought we’d try you. We were just leaving when you rode up.”</p><p>So Harry took Hermione through his garden where she, like Ginny, was impressed to see he’d been trying his hand at gardening.</p><p>“Look at these little peppers, Ron!” cried Hermione. “Harry, I’m so impressed!”</p><p>“Ah, thanks, but those are really easy to grow. Now, if the melons will just cooperate . . .”</p><p>“Are you growing a beard too?” Ron asked Harry, who had indeed let his stubble grow out. Mrs. Weasley still harped on about Harry’s longer hair, and he’d let her trim it up at the back and around the ears, but it was still wild up top, and his beard remained intact. “It looks good. Hermione, would you fancy me with a beard?”</p><p>Hermione looked up from her inspection of the tiny watermelons. “Oh, I was hoping for a great, big moustache.”</p><p>Harry led them through his kitchen and living room, where Hermione wandered around happily as Ginny had upon her first visit.</p><p>“And look at this!” Ron cried, picking up one of the Playstation controllers. “Muggles do some things right—come see!”</p><p>“I know what video games are, Ronald,” Hermione said, grinning.</p><p>“Oh—right.”</p><p>As Hermione checked out the back yard, Harry and Ron leaned against the kitchen counter.</p><p>“It’s nice, Harry.”</p><p>“Thanks,” said Harry, wondering why Ron was complimenting him on a house he’d seen for ages. Then he looked over at him and understood—Ron was watching Hermione through the back window as she peered hopefully inside a bird house. He hadn’t even heard Harry.</p><p>“I’m glad to be alive,” Ron went on, still gazing out the back window.</p><p>“Things are going well with Hermione, then, I take it?” said Harry, amused.</p><p>“Yeah. We talk all night.” Then Ron seemed to snap out of a daydream and return to earth. “So, uh—how’s everything going—with you and Ginny?”</p><p>“Oh—good, yeah.” Harry cleared his throat. “We talk all night too.”</p><p>“You two have been together for a while now. . . . You ever think about how these might be the ones we stick with? Blimey . . .”</p><p>Harry had indeed thought about it. But as he stood with Ron in his kitchen, he realized for the first time that his wish for it, his hope that he and Ginny would end up old and happy together, frightened him. He’d had his dreams dashed before, been punished for planning too far ahead, had people he loved wrenched from him . . . life had been cruel to him in that regard. He’d broken things off with her once before, to protect her, and a small part of him wondered if he ought to have kept it that way. He wondered, not for the first time, if perhaps he was meant to be with no one at all.</p><p>Harry smiled weakly at Ron as he continued to gaze tenderly at Hermione, and Harry felt a familiar pang of jealousy at the clear path ahead of his best friends.</p><p>September blew in with a cold snap of quickly turning leaves and icy mornings and Mr. Weasley and Harry hurried to finish their renovations at the Burrow—they’d put down new floors in the living room but the plumbing in the bathroom was still a mess after the ghoul had wedged himself into the pipe beneath the sink.</p><p>Later that month, Harry was awakened by an owl on his bedroom windowsill. He recognized it as the one Ginny had been using from Wales and he shot out of bed to retrieve the letter. He opened it eagerly:</p><p>
  <em>Harry,</em>
</p><p>
  <em>Bad news. Jones still thinks we’re rubbish and she’s cancelled our break next weekend so we can keep practicing. SHE’S SO DEMANDING, HARRY. We’re great. You’ll see. Dunno what she’s on about. We need to fine-tune a few plays, but we kick some serious ass. These women can do things on a broomstick I didn’t even know was possible.</em>
</p><p>
  <em>The Air Wave Gold—Goldie, as I’ve named it—is unbelievable. I’ve really gotten to see what it can do during these practices. The other girls are super jealous. It rides like a dream. But don’t worry, it has nothing on you.</em>
</p><p>
  <em>Sorry I can’t see you this weekend. This means I won’t be able to see you until Christmas, which might as well be a decade from now. I miss you like you wouldn’t believe.</em>
</p><p>
  <em>x</em>
</p><p>Ginny</p><p>Harry rubbed the pad of his thumb across where she’d signed her name and let his disappointment wash over him. They’d gone longer than this without seeing each other, but they’d always either had their Extendable Ears or had at least been able to write each other frequent, long letters. This third letter from Ginny since she’d started practice was actually her longest yet.</p><p>But then Harry was struck with an idea, and decided it was the perfect excuse for a little road trip.</p><p>On Saturday, Harry put on Sirius’s leather jacket and drove his motorcycle out of Plymouth and headed north. Once he’d reached Tamar Valley, he flew out of sight in the clouds, keeping his compass pointed due north. He enjoyed this far more than driving, and he liked driving very much. Once in a while, Harry would dip beneath the clouds for a moment to get his bearings. After about an hour he flew over a great expanse of water and he knew he was over the Bristol Channel. Three more hours saw Harry safely over Holyhead in Northern Wales. Harry’s face was numb from the cold air and he’d nearly gone deaf from the rushing wind in his ears, but he was exhilarated. Somehow this, more than Apparating or Floo Powder or Portkeys, had shown Harry how small, how accessible the world really was. He felt free.</p><p>Landing discretely in the shelter of a park, Harry drove across the island, past the breakwater where crashing waves jutted up against a steep cliff, and a squat lighthouse sat in the distance. When Ginny’s parents and Harry had dropped Ginny off in July, they had used Floo Powder to appear right across the street from the Holyhead Harpies training grounds, so Harry had to figure out how to find the grounds from a distance. Ginny had said the training grounds were north of Trearddur Bay and was enchanted with anti-Muggle charms so that Muggles only saw a large golf course. It was easy to find again; he spotted it a couple miles out as a result of the gigantic forest green and gold flags that flew over the grounds.</p><p>He pulled up across the leaf-strewn street from the entrance just as the team seemed to have let out of practice for the evening. A small group of tired-looking women walked out in green and gold robes (though these colors were difficult to see as they were all covered in mud). Several of them looked over as Harry removed his helmet and shook out his sweaty hair. The last and smallest player exited, lagging behind, looking more tired than all of them combined.</p><p>“How’s that fat lip?” Harry called.</p><p>Ginny and some of her teammates looked around, confused, then Ginny spotted Harry across the street. Her jaw fell open.</p><p>“Who is <em>that</em>, Ginny?” ogled one of the players.</p><p>Another squinted. “Wait, isn’t that—”</p><p>Ginny quickly said goodbye to her teammates and crossed the street.</p><p>“Do you have <em>any </em>idea,” Ginny declared, taking him in, “how fit you look?” She fingered the sleeve of his leather jacket.</p><p>Harry took out his wand, cast <em>Geminio</em> on his helmet, and handed the duplicate to Ginny.</p><p>“Hop on.”</p><p>Holding on to Harry’s waist, Ginny shouted directions to her flat over the roar of the engine, and a small building came into view. The Harpies had provided a flat fully furnished for each of the team members.</p><p>“Sorry, it’s kind of a mess.”</p><p>Harry looked around as they entered the one-room flat: clothes were strewn across the floor, dishes towered in the sink, open playbooks and parchment scribbled with Quidditch diagrams and charts littered the small desk, and the bed was unmade. He was relieved to see that when her mother wasn’t around, Ginny was even messier than Harry was. A Quaffle had been charmed to zoom around the small flat on its own and it kept bouncing on walls and banging against the ceiling.</p><p>Ginny turned Harry’s face to hers. “I can’t believe you came to see me.” Then, holding on to his jaw and scratching his stubble, she said, “And for the record, I’m loving the beard.”</p><p>Harry began peeling off her filthy robes, letting them splatter with mud to the floor.</p><p>“I’ve missed you.”</p>
  </div></div>
<a name="section0009"><h2>9. Christmas Confessions</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Summary for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
            <p>Harry learns that Ron and Hermione have taken their relationship to the next level. An old girlfriend of Harry's sits down with Rita Skeeter for an exclusive interview.</p>
          </blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>Following an exceptionally pleasant weekend wherein Harry and Ginny did not venture out of the flat—and hardly even out of her bed—except for when she had practice, Harry returned to his cottage to find yet another surprise visitor in his yard.</p><p>He stopped dead in the street, engine still sputtering, watching Rita Skeeter standing in his melon patch as she peered into the front window of his house, her hands cupped around her eyes so she could see into the darkness better. She wore a tangerine orange suit and her alligator bag swung heavily at her elbow as she craned her neck to see deeper into Harry’s home. Harry revved his engine, startling her, and she spun around, a bony hand clutching her chest. Her bespectacled eyes narrowed, looking at Harry warily until he ripped off his helmet.</p><p>“Oh, Merlin, it is you!” she trilled, walking toward him. Harry saw that her shoes matched her hair, both an unnatural canary yellow.</p><p>“What the hell do you want?”</p><p>“Well,” she purred, leaning against Harry’s gate. “I didn’t think I’d be lucky enough to get an <em>interview</em>.”</p><p>“Spying on me, then? What, couldn’t find anyone else to lie about me?” Harry hadn’t seen an article from her in a couple weeks—Harry supposed she was getting desperate.</p><p>“Oh, plenty of people have given me <em>excellent </em>material,” she said darkly, eyeing her long, red fingernails. “I’m just waiting on the opportune time to use it.”</p><p>Pretending that this didn’t horrify him, Harry scoffed. “Like who?”</p><p>“Oh, you know—old girlfriends . . .” Rita eyed Harry impishly.</p><p>Harry’s mind flash immediately to that day at the Fallen Fifty memorial, to Cho, who had avoided Harry’s gaze. He had thought it was because she believed he’d been responsible for the material in Rita’s book, but perhaps it had been the other way around. . . .</p><p>“Where did you get that <em>lovely </em>motorcycle? I must say, you look absolutely <em>smashing</em> on it—”</p><p>Harry got off the bike and walked it into his walkway. “This is trespassing.”</p><p>Rita opened the garden gate, hopped a few feet onto the sidewalk, then winked at him coquettishly.</p><p>Scowling, Harry knocked the kickstand into place and walked to his front door.</p><p>“Harry, where were you this weekend, darling?” Rita called from the sidewalk. “Tracking the Devil of Dartmoor? Perhaps visiting that girlfriend of yours, hm? The world wants to know!”</p><p>Harry disappeared into the house and slammed the door.</p><p>But Rita Skeeter made several more appearances on the sidewalk in front of Harry’s house over the next couple weeks, trying to catch him as he came in and out of the house. At least she couldn’t accost him when he used Floo Powder or Apparated, but it meant he was using his motorcycle less and less these days.</p><p>One weekend in October, Harry was at the Burrow pulling pipes out of the wall and Mr. Weasley was magicking up the water that was quickly flooding the floor when they heard a mechanical squealing and then a honking from the front yard.</p><p>“What on earth—?” said Mrs. Weasley, still clutching a half-knit sock as the three of them made their way outside.</p><p>“Behold!”</p><p>Ron was bouncing up and down in the driver’s seat of a pristine 1960s tan Mustang convertible. Hermione sat ashen-faced in the passenger seat, a hand pressed firmly on the dashboard.</p><p>“Hermione taught me how to drive!” Ron shouted, getting out of the car. “How’d I do?” he asked, rounding on Hermione.</p><p>Hermione stepped out as well, though much more shaken. “Fine, really, except for when you almost crashed right into the Burrow.” Harry noticed the deep ruts in the dirt dangerously close to the garden gate where Ron had screeched to a halt.</p><p>Mr. Weasley was elated and immediately requested the hood of the car be lifted so he could inspect the engine.</p><p>“Oh, she’s in great shape!” he cooed, admiring the car battery. “Where’d you get it?”</p><p>“Percy, actually,” said Hermione, whose knees were still trembling. “He told me how he’d confiscated it from some wizard who had enchanted it to scream obscenities at Muggles on the road who drove too slowly. After the Department of Magical Cooperation removed the enchantments, the car couldn’t be returned to the wizard, so they were going to have it impounded.”</p><p>“And she knew Perce wouldn’t give it to me if I asked, since he knew I had no idea how to drive the thing and would probably enchant it all over again,” added Ron, “so Hermione said <em>she</em> needed a car to get around—he handed her the keys, no questions asked.”</p><p>Hermione grinned at Ron, pleased at her own cunning.</p><p>“What is it with you boys and dangerous vehicles?” bemoaned Mrs. Weasley, but Harry caught her admiring it tentatively.</p><p>“And someday I’m going to get a wee little Muggle license with my name on it and everything!” Harry laughed.</p><p>Ron then took Harry for a ride around Ottery St. Catchpole, jabbering on all the while about the controls inside the cabin.</p><p>“And this knob here’s <em>air conditioning</em>!” Ron had put the top down and still the air conditioning was on high. “The things Muggles think of!”</p><p>A pine tree air freshener hung from the rearview mirror—and another one was around the gear shift, another clipped on a vent, one was tucked in the glove compartment, and several more littered the cabin of the car in various spots, all flapping wildly in the open air.</p><p>“They put these in their cars to make it smell nice,” Ron explained diplomatically.</p><p>They drove around the countryside and really, Harry thought, Ron wasn’t half bad. He stopped too abruptly at stop signs and he still hadn’t figured out the concept of four-way intersections or merging properly between lanes, but for someone whose only experience until now was driving a defective flying car as a kid, Ron was doing all right. They came upon a straight bit of road with no oncoming traffic and, with a devilish look at each other, Ron floored it, reaching ninety miles an hour. They decided later they wouldn’t mention that to anyone, except maybe Ron’s dad.</p><p>George also came home for the weekend and he was beside himself with excitement over Ron’s car—but mostly because it was a new toy for him to experiment with. Hermione kept catching him at various points through the weekend trying to jinx it to make loud farting noises when Ron started the engine, or for the seatbelts to grope passengers unawares or for nasty-smelling bubbles to come out of the vents when the air conditioning was turned on.</p><p>This was fortunate because Percy also stopped by, and when he saw Hermione constantly thwarting George’s schemes, he assumed it was because Hermione wanted to protect the vehicle for herself.</p><p>That weekend, Ron was in an exceptionally good mood, and Harry wasn’t sure it was all a result of the car. He helped his mother with the dishes, something he’d infamously avoided over the years, and when George replaced Ron’s toothpaste with Magical Moustache Miracle Stubble Grow, causing Ron’s teeth to grow thick red hair, he only laughed with the others instead of chasing after George to kick him.</p><p>Ron had also taken to singing at random points throughout the day, as if he were so happy he couldn’t contain himself. Harry hadn’t seen anything like this from Ron since he’d been under the effects of Romilda Vane’s love potion. Celestina Warbeck’s latest hit, <em>“Send Me an Owl Saying You Love Me</em>,” came on the radio Saturday evening while Ron chopped vegetables for dinner and he sang along at the top of his lungs, completely off-key.</p><p>“Did someone hex Ron and remove his shame?” George shouted to Harry from the hallway over the racket, covering his ears. “I swear it wasn’t me.”</p><p>But Harry’s biggest clue that something was up was when Ron let Percy prattle on to him at dinner about the dangers of unregistered flying carpets, and Ron didn’t interrupt him once.</p><p>After dinner, Harry figured it out. Ron and his mother were cleaning up the kitchen, and Harry watched casually from the doorway as Hermione handed Ron her plate.</p><p>“Thanks,” Ron said, kissing her cheek.</p><p>“You’re welcome,” said Hermione, and she promptly crashed into a dining room chair and fell with a great clattering racket. Ron helped her up.</p><p>“Are you okay?”</p><p>“Yep! Totally fine!” Then Hermione turned on her heel and stalked out of the kitchen, glaring at Harry’s teasing smile.</p><p>A minute later, Harry walked up to Ron’s room and Hermione cornered him on the stairs.</p><p>“You were right, okay?” she hissed.</p><p>“What?”</p><p>“I told you I’d tell you, and I’m telling you now.”</p><p>Harry had been so pleased with himself for figuring it out, but now he felt embarrassed—he didn’t exactly want details.</p><p>“It happened at my flat a week ago. And I’ve been a complete wreck ever since. I mean—it was good—”</p><p>“Okay,” Harry squirmed. "That’s enough.”</p><p>“Who else am I supposed to talk to about this?”</p><p>“I dunno? Ginny? Or literally anyone else . . .” he muttered.</p><p>“Well, she’s not here and I’m <em>dying!”</em></p><p>Harry took a deep breath. “Fine. But not here.”</p><p>They went into Ginny’s room and shut the door. Harry felt too awkward to sit, but Hermione took a seat at Ginny’s desk.</p><p>“Things have been going so well, you know, at the Ministry and everything, and Ron seems to be doing well in his training. He’s really started getting into his studies, which is great to see. So we got to spend more time together since he didn’t have to do so much extra studying, and one thing led to another, and . . .”</p><p>Harry stared fixedly through the window.</p><p>“Ron made everything so romantic and really, the whole night was great. But I was so surprised—I got in my own head and . . . well, you know what that looks like.”</p><p>Harry nodded, still not looking at her.</p><p>“I was terrible. Honestly, I didn’t think Ron would be so thoughtful, and I think it threw me off. I was half-expecting to have to explain everything to him, but it was—<em>good</em>.”</p><p>Harry remembered the book in Ron’s bedroom. He supposed it had been useful. And he thought about Ron’s behavior this weekend; Harry wasn’t sure Hermione had been as bad as she was claiming.</p><p><em> “</em>I just couldn’t stop thinking—‘<em>Is this really Ron?’</em> And I know he wants to go at it again but I’m just going to freeze up again!”</p><p>Harry was doing all right until she said “go at it again,” which painted too vivid a picture—now he was running his hands through his hair and wondering how rude it would seem if he just jumped through the window and ran into the woods.</p><p>“What do I do?” Hermione pleaded.</p><p>He wanted to help, he really did, but he simply didn’t think he was the best one for the job. But out of his love for Hermione, and also partly so he could get out of this conversation as quickly as possible, Harry said, “I expect you’ll just have to practice.”</p><p>“Okay. Like when I couldn’t ever get the hang of my Patronus and I practiced for hours and hours, or when my Amortentia potion wasn’t quite mother-of-pearl white and I made eight batches. . . .” Hermione looked like she wanted a piece of parchment so she could start taking notes from Harry.</p><p>“Hermione?”</p><p>“Yeah?”</p><p>“This isn’t something you’re going to get tested on. Just . . . <em>relax.”</em></p><p><em> “</em>But<em> how?”</em></p><p>“Just—don’t put so much pressure on yourself. You’re not doing anything wrong. And <em>talk </em>to Ron.”</p><p>Hermione nodded. “Okay.” Then she smiled at him. “Thanks. I think I just needed someone to tell me it was all right.”</p><p>Harry grinned back.</p><p>“So . . .” said Hermione. “Where did you and Ginny first . . . ?”</p><p>Harry almost didn’t answer, but in the spirit of reciprocity, he eyed Ginny’s bed meaningfully.</p><p><em> “What? </em>Then it must’ve been ages ago! I thought—”</p><p>“No more questions!” Harry shooed her out of Ginny’s room, Hermione looking scandalized and impressed.</p><p> </p><p> </p><p>The rest of autumn passed much like that, with Harry, Ron, and Hermione making visits to the Burrow almost every weekend (Ron still technically lived there, but he’d been spending so much time with Hermione that Harry was sure he was staying at Hermione’s at least a couple times a week).</p><p>Harry and Mr. Weasley had finished their renovations and Harry and Ron had started their Criminal Investigation course at Auror training. They were now over halfway through with their training, and things had only gotten more demanding. However, they both agreed Criminal Investigation was much more interesting than last term’s course on Magical Jurisprudence, which had involved learning a great deal of legal jargon and protocol.</p><p>Auror Robards still seemed determined to hold on to his iciness toward Harry (though, admittedly, he wasn’t particularly warm toward anyone else), but it seemed almost silly at this point; Harry had done nothing to warrant Robards’s behavior, and it was obvious to everyone in the class, especially Ron and their friends Cypress and Sly, that Harry was the best trainee. Cypress, who apparently knew Auror Robards (Cypress’s mother had gone to Hogwarts with him), said he was just being hard on Harry so Harry would prove himself, but Ron joked Robards’ mysterious head injury had affected his ability to judge Harry properly.</p><p>“I heard he got that gash on his head when a yeti took a swipe at him while he was on a mission in Greenland,” whispered Cypress.</p><p>The four of them were sitting together as the class was supposed to be in groups practicing lines of questioning and spotting lies. They’d each been given scripts—Cypress was supposed to be the witness, Sly the lead investigator, Harry the second investigator, Ron the suspect. But they’d gotten off topic.</p><p>“No way,” said Sly, her script slipping to the floor. “It was a giant—he drove a meat cleaver right into his skull but Robards had already bewitched the weapon to be non-fatal.” Cypress’s eyes bulged.</p><p>Ron shook his head. “My dad knows him and said he fell off his roof trying to shoo off a raccoon in his yard and hit his head on a rock on the way down. Was hospitalized for months.”</p><p>Cypress stared at Ron. “Right, we’re going with the giant story, yeah?”</p><p>That Saturday, Harry and Ron were studying in Ron’s room at the Burrow when an owl fluttered in to deliver Harry’s copy of the <em>Daily Prophet.</em></p><p>“Oh, no,” Harry said, reading the paper. “Listen to this.”</p><p>
  <b> <em>“NEVER SAY HIS NAME IN FRONT OF ME,” SAID HARRY POTTER</em> </b>
</p><p>
  <em>When Harry Potter dated the older and very attractive Cho Chang during his time at Hogwarts, Harry had several strict rules.</em>
</p><p>
  <em>“He never wanted me to talk about him,” says Cho, referring to her first boyfriend, the brave and exceedingly handsome Cedric Diggory, who died under mysterious circumstances during the Triwizard Tournament, for which he was (many say the proper) Hogwarts Champion.</em>
</p><p>
  <em>Yet Harry, possessive and jealous that he was, had little patience for his girlfriend’s grief, forbidding her from even speaking Cedric’s name.</em>
</p><p><em>“It was doomed from the beginning,” continues Cho. “The whole time we were together, he fancied his friend, Hermione Granger. I’ll tell you, he certainly talked about </em>her <em>an awful lot.”</em></p><p>
  <em>Her relationship with the Boy Wonder was so traumatic and damaging for Cho that she’s now engaged to a Muggle man—she seems to have given up on wizards altogether.</em>
</p><p>Harry stopped reading mid-article and crumpled the paper angrily.</p><p>“How long do I have to put up with this?” Harry growled.</p><p>“As long as you’re you, I expect,” Ron shrugged. “Everyone knows her writing’s rubbish, mate. Try not to let it bother you.”</p><p>Everyone spent their Christmas holidays at the Burrow, even Charlie, who had just finished a project in Romania. That first snowy evening, Harry and everyone else ate dinner together in the warm, cozy kitchen, and Harry kept eyeing the kitchen door anxiously; Ginny was scheduled to arrive any minute, and he hadn’t seen her since he’d visited her in Wales months ago, and they had barely communicated at all. His body, his heart, seemed to sense her imminent presence; he couldn’t sit still through dinner and his heart beat erratically. Hermione kept throwing him knowing, teasing looks throughout the meal, which didn’t help in the slightest.</p><p>During dessert, Mrs. Weasley finally got the news she’s been hoping for for the past year. When Bill and Fleur arrived, they hadn’t even gotten through the back door before Mrs. Weasley pounced on them.</p><p>“Let them through, Molly!” said Mr. Weasley, laughing. Bill and Fleur walked in with snow on their shoulders as Mrs. Weasley bobbed around them. Perhaps Bill had wanted to wait to make their announcement, but his mother, vibrating at his side like a lit firework, was making it rather impossible.</p><p>“All right,” Bill said soothingly to his mother, then he addressed the room. “Yes. We are pregnant.”</p><p>Mrs. Weasley screamed and hugged Fleur, who was indeed sporting a small bump. Everyone got up to hug and shake hands.</p><p>“Congratulations!” cried Hermione.</p><p>“Drinks all around!” said Charlie, fetching glasses from the cupboard.</p><p>“Cheers!” Mr. Weasley said, and everyone clinked their glasses of Butterbeer, save for Fleur, whom Mrs. Weasley had somehow already served some kind of herbal tea that smelled like twigs.</p><p>Everyone sat down at the table to finish their pie, entertained by Mr. Weasley, who told the tale of when Mrs. Weasley gave birth to Charlie during a snowstorm in December and Mr. Weasley had been dropping off young Bill at his grandparents’ house when he’d gotten word that his wife had gone into labor back at the then-much-smaller Burrow. Instead of Apparating, brain addled by the excitement, Mr. Weasley had run outside and had fallen on the ice and broken both his arms.</p><p>“Billy, just two years old, mind you, offered to heal me with my own wand!” laughed Mr. Weasley. “I couldn’t even Apparate in my condition, but I was able to use Floo Powder to get back home. And that’s how I almost missed you being born! And why there are no photographs of me holding you that day!” Mr. Weasley clapped Charlie on the back as everyone at the table laughed and ate.</p><p>The kitchen door opened again, and amid a cloud of fresh snow, Ginny entered. Harry lurched to his feet, but Mrs. Weasley was faster. She kissed Ginny’s cheeks as the rest of them crowded around her.</p><p>“Ginny, you look lovely, dear! Is this a new outfit? I love the way you have your hair—”</p><p>She wore all black save for a forest green Holyhead Harpies sports jacket. Her shirt was cropped, revealing a swath of white, freckled skin. Her hair was slick and straight as it cascaded down her back.</p><p>“Do you have my autograph?” asked Ron next to Harry.</p><p>“You’ll have to wait until Christmas morning, Ronald.”</p><p>“What are practices like, Ginny?” asked Charlie. “Brutal, I bet!”</p><p>“I heard Gwenog Jones is a real pill,” said Percy.</p><p>“Professional Quidditch agrees with you, kid,” said Mr. Weasley, wrapping an arm around his daughter’s shoulders. Once everyone had greeted and gushed over Ginny, she turned to Harry and the room got suddenly quiet. George whistled.</p><p>“Hi,” she beamed.</p><p>“Hey, you.”</p><p>Harry wanted to kiss her—well, really he wanted to pounce upon her—but everyone was watching intently, so Harry just stood there awkwardly.</p><p>“Harry, why don’t you fetch Ginny’s bags and take them to her room?” said Hermione shrewdly. “Mrs. Weasley, I’ll help with the dishes. . . .”</p><p>The crowd broke up and Harry eyed Hermione appreciatively as he went outside to get Ginny’s luggage. Ginny led him into her bedroom and as Harry set down her bags, she shut the door.</p><p>“Get on the bed,” ordered Ginny, sealing the door with a couple charms.</p><p>Harry walked toward her, wanting to touch her.</p><p>“No, on the bed.” Ginny pressed him onto the bedspread and took off her jacket.</p><p>Harry slid up the bed on his elbows as Ginny straddled him. He eyed the door. “What ab—”</p><p>“I’ve got it covered,” she said, hastily pulling her hair into a ponytail. “But we don’t have long.”</p><p>Before Harry could react, Ginny had unzipped his trousers and pulled them and his boxers down past his knees. He swelled, inch by inch, at the mere sight of her straddling him. Then her hands were on him, stroking and rubbing, and Harry ached painfully for her within seconds, as if she were a drug he’d been denied for far too long.</p><p>She bent down, teasing with her lips and tongue, and Harry covered his mouth as he held himself up with one elbow. He had a much better view of things lying down than he had standing in his kitchen, barely able to keep his legs from giving out, and watching Ginny work was an incredible sight. As she added her hands, exploring and groping, Harry collapsed back on her pillows.</p><p>A moment later, Ginny sat up.</p><p>“Show me how you do it,” she whispered, licking her lips and sending a thrill through Harry’s stomach.</p><p>Slowly, he reached down, picking up where Ginny had left off but adding a bit of twist with his wrist. Ginny watched studiously but restlessly, breathing heavily, as if she were resisting the urge to knock Harry’s hand away any second and resume her own musings. She swallowed. Having her watch him stiffened him still further.</p><p>She placed her hand above his, mimicking his movements, catching his rhythm. Harry let go and closed his eyes, groaning at the sublime feeling of her hands on him, doing exactly what he liked.</p><p>He started in surprise when he felt her mouth on him again in addition to her hands. Harry reached for her ponytail and pulled it loose, savoring the sensation of her hair falling messily across his thighs.</p><p>Ginny removed her hands and took him in her mouth. Harry instinctively tilted his hips toward her and she moaned, sending vibrations through him and forcing him to grab fistfuls of sheets.</p><p>“Look at me,” panted Harry.</p><p>Mouth still moving rhythmically over him, she gazed up at him through strands of red hair, her brown eyes turned honey. Harry began to feel the telltale waves of heat coursing through him and he gave her hair a gentle tug in warning. But like last time, she ignored him. Instead, she increased her efforts, making small noises in her throat. And still she held his gaze.</p><p>Harry uttered a strangled curse and succumbed to his pumping release, stuffing his fist in his mouth to stifle a howl. He grabbed the back of Ginny’s head with his other hand and held her in place until he was empty.</p><p>When he was spent, Harry lay limp on her bed, huffing for air. Ginny lingered, kissing his hip bones and moving up his stomach.</p><p>“We should get back out there,” she said as she sat up. She giggled at Harry’s debauched state and combed her fingers through her hair. “They’ll wonder where we’ve gone.”</p><p>Much preferring to lie still for several hundred years, Harry begrudgingly pulled up his trousers and followed her out.</p><p>The Weasleys were still chattering excitedly at the kitchen table with glasses of firewhisky and Butterbeer, and Mrs. Weasley and Bill were in a heated discussion about baby names. Mrs. Weasley, already knitting a small bonnet, couldn’t believe Bill wasn’t considering naming his first born if it were a boy after his grandfather, Buckleminster.</p><p>“Bloody hell, <em>Buckleminster</em>?” Ron muttered to Hermione as Harry and Ginny sat down. Harry pulled two Butterbeers toward them and they both drank thirstily. Ron narrowed his eyes at them. “What’s up with you two?”</p><p>“Nothing,” they said in unison. Harry was suddenly very aware of his hair, even untidier than usual, and Ginny next to him, slightly out of breath.</p><p>Ron turned to Hermione. “Anyway, I hope she calms down about all that before <em>we</em> have k—” Then he evidently realized what he’d said and quickly brought his own Butterbeer to his lips. Hermione had gone deep red, and she began to eat her potatoes in an overly dignified way. Harry and Ginny shared an eager, mirthful look.</p><p>“Before you have what, Ronald?” said Ginny in a high, girlish voice, setting her drink down. But Ron was chugging his Butterbeer so quickly it was dribbling down the sides of his face. “Before you have <em>k </em>something . . . what could it be, Harry, do you know?” Harry shrugged, trying not to laugh behind his own Butterbeer as Ginny continued to speculate. “K . . . let’s see . . . before you have kappas in your bathtub? That’s dangerous, you know, they could grab you by the—” Ron lurched up so fast he jostled the whole table.</p><p>“Need more Butterbeer,” he said awkwardly.</p><p>Hours later, Harry and Ron sat in Ron’s room to escape the shrill excitement over the baby (and Ron was avoiding Ginny’s relentless teasing: “Before you have <em>k</em>—what? K . . . Kwikspell books ordered to the house because you’re really a Squib? Canary creams up your nose because all your bogies got lonely?”).</p><p>With a crash, Hermione burst through the door brandishing a copy of <em>Witch Weekly. </em></p><p>“Harry, you’ve got to read this!”</p><p>“If it’s a response to that article about me buying Ginny’s way onto the Harpies, I’m not interested,” Harry said. “I’m starting to get hate mail now.”</p><p>“No—just look!”</p><p>Harry took the magazine from her and a short article featuring a small picture of Cho Chang caught his eye.</p><p>
  <b> <em>HARRY POTTER WAS GOOD TO ME</em> </b>
</p><p>
  <em>In a recent book and subsequent articles by Rita Skeeter about Harry Potter, I have been depicted as a bitter ex-girlfriend to an arrogant pig—well, only half of that is true.</em>
</p><p>
  <em>I was bitter, for a long time. But not because of anything Harry did. My first boyfriend, Cedric Diggory, was killed by Voldemort, and I was completely devastated for a long time. Harry was there when Cedric died, displaying great bravery and strength. I grew fond of him, and when we were together, and he was patient and never jealous. But ultimately, I still had feelings for Cedric and that drove a wedge between us.</em>
</p><p>
  <em>When Rita Skeeter came sniffing around for a quote about my relationship with Harry, I was foolish enough to give one. She opened old wounds and I’m ashamed of what I divulged to her. She mangled my words, trading my anger over Cedric’s death for a grudge toward Harry.</em>
</p><p>
  <em>I want to set the record straight that Harry was decent and kind when I didn’t deserve it, and I urge anyone who regularly reads Rita Skeeter’s articles to seriously question their veracity.</em>
</p><p>“Well that was classy of her,” said Ron, reading over Harry’s shoulder. “I really read her wrong, eh?”</p><p>Harry grinned to himself and made a mental note to write Cho a letter of thanks.</p><p>Both in better spirits, Harry and Ron decided to join Hermione downstairs, but the second they opened the door Ginny was leaning against the wall there, clearly eager to keep teasing Ron. Apparently she’d thought up quite a few more proposals to finish Ron’s sentence and she was bursting to try them all.</p><p>“Ron! Was it—before you have Crumple-Horned Snorkacks over for dinner? Silly Ron, they’re not real, you know.” She wouldn’t let Ron and Harry pass. “Oh, before you have Quidditch tryouts for the really tall and skinny boys’ team? You’d be the captain. Cockroach clusters for breakfast? Chimera dung for dessert? Krum’s autograph copied on all your underwear?”</p><p>Harry snorted with laughter, and Hermione let out a stifled titter. Finally, Harry, Ginny, and Hermione were all laughing, and Ron couldn’t hold his scowl any longer—he grinned too.</p><p>They all made their way downstairs, where everyone had apparently had a bit too much firewhisky in celebration. Bill, Charlie, George, and Mr. Weasley, all in new, matching sweaters from Mrs. Weasley, had an empty bottle between them, and a fresh argument had broken out in the kitchen while everyone else had migrated to the living room. Harry, Ron, Hermione, and Ginny joined those in the living room but within sight of the argument in the kitchen.</p><p>“Of course it’s too soon!” said George. “It’ll always be too soon. That’s not the point.”</p><p>“It’s <em>crass</em>, George,” said Bill, who sat as tall, thin, and angry at the table as his father. “I can’t believe you would do it.” Bill had evidently just found out about George’s display featuring Fred at Weasley’s Wizard Wheezes.</p><p>“It’s none of your business, really!”</p><p>“It is too my business! He was my brother!”</p><p>“Hear, hear!” said Mr. Weasley, sloshing a bit of drink.</p><p>“He was my <em>twin</em> brother! I think I knew him a little more than you did.”</p><p>“And that gives you the right to smear his name like this?”</p><p>“I think George was just trying to give folks a good laugh,” said Charlie in his soothing voice.</p><p>“At my son’s expense!” cried Mr. Weasley, clanging his glass on the table.</p><p>“<em>Fred would’ve wanted this,” </em>urged George. “He would much rather his legacy be about making people laugh than keeping them depressed—”</p><p>“But—”</p><p>“Let him speak, Dad.”</p><p>George took a moment before he spoke again. “When I found out he’d died . . . I didn’t think I’d ever laugh again. Fred was . . . well, he was the more outgoing of the two of us, more daring. He was always the one with the big ideas. You all probably saw us as so equal, but I—I looked up to him, you see? And now I . . . I just want to do what’s right by him. And it may not be in a way you understand, but—”</p><p>“George is right,” said Ron suddenly, and the whole house went quiet. He stood up from his spot in the living room and walked to the kitchen. “I reckon we all need a laugh, however we can get it.”</p>
  </div></div>
<a name="section0010"><h2>10. Ginny Overcome</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Summary for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
            <p>Ginny experiences growing pains as a new professional Quidditch player. Harry faces old demons during Auror training that send him into a downward spiral.</p>
          </blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>In January, the entire family traveled to Exmoor, not too far north from where Harry lived, for Ginny’s first professional Quidditch match against the Wimbourne Wasps.</p><p>Ginny was superb. They’d announced her as a rookie, but the commentator, a portly wizard with a large balding spot, became so enamored with her as she zipped up and down the field on her golden broomstick that by the end of the game he was pretty much just commenting on whatever Ginny was doing, and the crowd ate it up. The Harpies won two-hundred and eighty to one-hundred and twenty.</p><p>Harry, Ron, Hermione, and Mr. and Mrs. Weasley attended every one of Ginny’s matches. Harry’s presence caused quite a scene, however, especially in the beginning; commentators took to pointing him out excitedly in the stands and fans clamored for his autograph before and after the match. He always politely declined and wished people would leave him alone to watch the games in peace, but one time, a six-year-old girl so small she could have fit in the palm of Hagrid’s hand, wearing fake glasses like Harry’s and a cartoonish scar drawn on her forehead, spilled her giant bag of potato crisps near Harry and he bought her a new bag. She squeaked her thanks when she saw who Harry was, evidently not realizing he’d been so close to her the whole time, staring up at him with a mixture of fear and awe.</p><p>As the spring nights steadily grew warmer, Harry and Ginny spent increasingly more and more time together. They fell into a rhythm now that both of their schedules were more regular and predictable. Between Ginny’s matches, practices, meetings, and exercise regime, and Harry’s Auror training and exercise of his own, they practiced their burgeoning skills in Harry’s kitchen and cooked meals together. They suffered through many terribly over-salted or undercooked meals in the beginning, but together, they slowly learned. They worked side by side in the garden on weekends when Ginny didn’t have a match, planting tomatoes and carrots and cucumber, and Ginny became invested in building an herb garden with lavender, rosemary, Dittany, Asphodel root—anything Harry would find useful to cook with, and anything that might come handy in a potion.</p><p>Harry had gotten so used to having Ginny at the cottage with him that he became unable to sleep well whenever she traveled with the team or went back home to the Burrow and wasn’t in his bed with him.</p><p>And when he thought of her lately, it was with a twinge of foreboding. To Harry, things seemed too good to be true. He had never known such prolonged happiness, so much uninterrupted time to spend how he liked. Something had to give. He sensed misfortune ahead as if he had spotted a thunderstorm on the horizon. The universe was laughing at him for thinking he could be happy. He tried to push these thoughts away when they came to him, but the thunder rumbled distantly, menacingly, in his head all the same.</p><p>One Saturday in March, Harry, Ron, and Hermione went to the match against the Ballycastle Bats, Harry completely decked out in green and gold (he’d bought every piece of merchandise they offered at the very first game). The Harpies were on a perfect winning streak for the season and the crowd that day was mostly a raucous sea of dark green. The stadium went wild when Ginny appeared, glinting in the sun—she’d become a fan favorite with her lightning-speed moves, ferocious offensive tactics, and golden broom. She’d also taken to making a show of winking toward the VIP box where Harry always was, whenever she scored—which the commentator never failed to note, to mad cheers, whistling, and chanting from the fans:</p><p>
  <em>Spinny Ginny hits you high,</em>
</p><p>
  <em>Spinny Ginny hits you low,</em>
</p><p>
  <em>She’s a dragon in the sky,</em>
</p><p>
  <em>Blink you’ll miss her—there she goes!</em>
</p><p>But that day, the Ballycastle Bats proved a fierce competitor, and their Seeker caught the Snitch early, diving down the middle of the pitch in a streak of black and red. The fans holding banners emblazoned with red bats screamed and applauded, and the Harpies left the field defeated. Gwenog Jones was furious, yelling at anyone who came too near her, swinging her broomstick like a sword. Harry saw Ginny toss her red hair back proudly on her way back to the changing rooms, holding her head high, but he could feel the heat of her disappointment and anger as if she were the sun at high noon.</p><p>“What a shame!” Hermione said, holding a large green flag limp at her side as the crowds began to clear out of the stadium.</p><p>“The Bats <em>are</em> the second best in the league,” admitted Ron as they began walking out, shuffling slowly among throngs of people. “Finbar Quigley is just too good.”</p><p>“Ginny’s not going to have a break from practice for weeks now,” said Harry gloomily. The three of them decided to grab a drink before heading home.</p><p>Harry arrived at home after dark, frustrated and disappointed for Ginny. Thinking he’d read a bit before bed, he took his copy of <em>Quidditch Teams of Britain and Ireland</em> off his shelf and headed upstairs.</p><p>Then he heard splashing coming from the bathroom. Easing his wand out of the back pocket of his jeans, he edged toward the light pouring out from the closed door.</p><p>He pushed the door open, and found Ginny in the clawfoot bathtub, which had been filled to the brim with steaming hot water and a mountain of bubbles. She didn’t look up when he entered, staring sullenly at her bent knees.</p><p>“I thought ice baths were the thing after a game,” said Harry, putting away his wand. The mirror had fogged over.</p><p>Ginny said nothing.</p><p>“It was a good game,” Harry went on, leaning against the doorway. “There’s not much to be done if the Seeker gets the Snitch.”</p><p>“I was off,” Ginny grumbled, still glaring at her perpetually bruised, scraped up knees. “Missed too many shots.”</p><p>“You’re too hard on yourself.”</p><p>She glared at him, suddenly angry. “No, I’m not. I wasn’t good enough today. I got cocky.” She slammed the side of her fist against the hard tiled wall and inhaled deeply, trying not to show how much it hurt.</p><p>“Well,” Harry said, pretending not to notice her nursing her hand. “If you ask me, you deserve to be at least a little cocky.”</p><p>“Stop.”</p><p>“What?”</p><p>She raised her voice, her face twisted with resentment. “Stop acting like I don’t ever make mistakes, like I’m perfect—like I don’t have a right to be angry!”</p><p>Harry understood then. She needed him to see her as she was. He knew about that, about people seeing what they wanted to see. And he knew about being angry—and <em>wanting</em> to be angry.</p><p>Harry pulled his shirt off and unzipped his jeans.</p><p>“What are you doing?” Ginny snapped.</p><p>“Getting in,” said Harry, slipping out of his underwear.</p><p>“You’re going to spill—” Ginny began, then sighed, as Harry stepped in and sank down in front of her. Indeed, the tub overflowed and hot water lapped out all over the cool tile. Harry almost gasped at how hot the water was.</p><p>They sat and stared at each other for a long while, Ginny glowering and wrenching her jaw, Harry simply allowing her, watching her. The water gradually cooled down a bit, or perhaps Harry got used to it.</p><p>“I know we can’t win every game,” Ginny finally said, her voice softer. “We just should have won today.”</p><p>Harry nodded.</p><p>After a few more minutes, the corner of Ginny’s mouth twitched, though there was still a hard edge, something accusing, to her voice. “Is this how you’re going to comfort me from now on? By taking off all your clothes?”</p><p>“It’s worked every other time,” Harry smiled. Then he scooped up two handfuls of bubbles and formed a beard on Ginny’s face as long as Dumbledore’s. Laughing despite herself, she scooped up her own bubbles and shaped horns on Harry’s head, along with thick frothy eyebrows.</p><p>Harry leaned in and kissed Ginny through the foam, bubbles popping in his ears and both of them chuckling. Then their tongues met and Harry stopped laughing, needing suddenly to kiss her more thoroughly. He pulled her close, hands dipping beneath the surface of the water, reaching, exploring.</p><p>Ginny’s breathing became jagged and her lips broke away from Harry’s as she leaned back, eyes closed, submitting to Harry’s touch. But Harry needed her closer.</p><p>Skin humming, he lifted her onto the edge of the tub still half-covered in bubbles, her skin hot and pink from the water, and brought his mouth between her legs. Ginny gasped, then immediately grabbed Harry’s hair, holding him in place.</p><p>Harry remained there, lost in her, until well after the water had chilled and goosebumps tiptoed upon his flesh.</p><p>
  
</p><p> </p><p>When he wasn’t with Ginny, Harry continued his Auror training. He and Ron were studying Dark Magic and Weaponry now, which Harry found to be the most interesting subject so far. Several more people had dropped out until they were just a group of thirteen (Cypress and Sly were still there). The remaining students handled and learned the properties of poisoned swords, cursed daggers, bows and arrows with target tracking abilities, and a large troll mace that could pulverize your skull into powder with one stroke.</p><p>One rainy day in April, Auror Robards had set up a long table with a large array of Dark items, including a mantel clock with no hands that still ticked menacingly and a hairbrush that whispered with a thousand voices when you brought it to your ears.</p><p>One student, Brendan Keates, a broad-shouldered bloke who excelled in the physical portions of training, scoffed as he picked up an unassuming-looking black traveling cloak from the table. It looked ancient, dusty and frayed, with a patch of fabric over one elbow.</p><p>“How’s this mangy old cloak gonna harm me?” Brendan asked, turning it over dubiously.</p><p>“Ah,” said Auror Robards darkly from the other side of the table, gaining the attention of the rest of the trainees. “That’s the Shade Cloak. Found in Siberia years ago, but it’s likely centuries old. The wearer soon finds there is already an occupant inside the cloak, something evil and invisible, that possesses the wearer, takes over his brain and heart, and makes him do . . . unspeakable things. . . . It’s nearly impossible to regain control and remove the cloak before your untimely demise. There’s no telling how many lives that cloak has claimed.”</p><p>Brendan, now holding the cloak gingerly between his thumbs and forefingers, set it back on the table with a shudder.</p><p>“Never underestimate an ordinary-looking object, Keates,” Auror Robards warned Brendan, walking along the length of the table toward Harry. “Not everything can be punched or kicked or Stunned into submission.</p><p>“Take this, for example.”</p><p>Robards picked up an item from the table and held it out to Harry. It was a necklace. Harry took it.</p><p>He opened his palm and saw the serpentine S, inlaid with glittering, green stones and realized with a growing sense of numbness that he was very familiar with this particular necklace: It was Salazar Slytherin’s locket.</p><p>Harry was sent forcibly back through time: he was hiking with Dumbledore into the cave, crossing the black lake in the boat, and retrieving the locket in the pedestal, by forcing Dumbledore to drink that horrible potion—Harry’s final memories with Dumbledore were ones of agony. . . . Then the Inferi had emerged, dragging Harry down to his watery death. . . . He could taste the foul water, could smell their putrid bodies. . . .</p><p>But the locket had been a fake. And Dumbledore had died, his body falling like a doll through the sky. . . .</p><p>Suddenly he was diving in a frozen pond, the gold chain cutting into his skin, choking him, drowning him, and the locket seared into his bare flesh like a hot iron as his vision blacked out and he sent the last of his oxygen above him in bubbles—</p><p>“Potter, are you all right?” asked a deep voice.</p><p>Harry came halfway back to the training room, but part of him was still drowning in icy water, and the pink oval over his heart burned anew as if it had just happened.</p><p>“Tell us what you know about Horcruxes, Potter,” said Robards softly. The other students whispered among themselves. It was the first time in almost three years that Robards had ever acknowledged what Harry had been through. Harry wondered if it was an admission of Robards believing Harry finally deserved to be there. But suddenly, Harry wasn’t so sure he did.</p><p>Harry looked around dazedly at the class, whose faces were fixed on Harry’s. No one was whispering now, yet Harry’s ears were roaring. He tried to regain his composure.</p><p>“Erm—well, it’s like you say. It’s something someone’s hidden a bit of their soul in. They can seem like everyday items, something you’d find in your attic, but they’re cursed and nearly impossible to destroy. . . .”</p><p>“How do you destroy them?” asked Sly, eyes riveted upon Harry.</p><p>Once again, Harry’s vision clouded with memories. He saw a black, withered hand next to a cracked ring; a diadem engulfed in Fiendfyre that threatened to swallow him too; and then he was twelve again, moments from death, stabbing a diary with a basilisk’s fang . . . and years passed and he stood defenseless in a forest, a lamb arriving to its own slaughter. . . .</p><p>“What do they do to you? I mean, how can you be sure it’s evil?” asked a voice from a great distance. And still Harry sank back through time. . . .</p><p>
  <em>“Part of Lord Voldemort lives inside Harry . . . a connection he has never understood . . .”</em>
</p><p>
  <em>Unbidden, unwanted, but terrifyingly strong, there rose within Harry a hatred so powerful he felt, for that instant, that he would like nothing better than to strike—to bite—to sink his fangs into the man before him—</em>
</p><p>
  <em> “I think I’m going mad. . . .”</em>
</p><p>
  <em> Let the pain stop . . . let it kill us. . . . Death is nothing compared to this. . . .</em>
</p><p>Harry was lost to time and space even as someone else’s voice echoed, “How do you even create them in the first place?”</p><p>
  <em> “Lily, take Harry and go! It’s him! Go! Run! I’ll hold him off!”</em>
</p><p>
  <em> A high-pitched, cold laugh . . . a flash of green light in a cramped hallway . . . a woman’s terrified scream . . .</em>
</p><p>
  <em> “Not Harry, not Harry, please not Harry!”</em>
</p><p>
  <em> “Stand aside, girl!”</em>
</p><p>
  <em> Another flash of light—the child orphaned in the crib—</em>
</p><p>“Harry!”</p><p>
  <em>“Avada Kedavra!”</em>
</p><p>“Potter! POTTER!”</p><p>Harry came to on the cold tile floor of the training room with thirteen faces peering anxiously down at him. He was sweaty and trembling.</p><p>“Potter, get up! What is this?” demanded Auror Robards, frowning down at him.</p><p>“It’s all right, sir, I’ve got him. . . .” Someone took Harry from underneath his arms and pulled him to his feet. Harry, whose brain was still foggy and whose ears were still ringing with his mother’s screams, let the person half-drag him out of the room and down the hall. It was only once they had entered the men’s bathroom that Harry saw in the mirror that it was Ron who carried him.</p><p>Ron leaned him against one of the sinks.</p><p>“Are you all right, mate?”</p><p>Harry’s hand flew reflexively to his scar, something he hadn’t done in years. It didn’t hurt, but he had a splitting headache. Blackness shrouded his vision again and Harry slumped to sit on the floor, holding his head.</p><p>“I can’t believe he sprung that locket on you,” said Ron, squatting beside him. “What was he playing at?”</p><p>“Probably wanted to show I’m completely barmy . . . and he’s right . . .”</p><p>“If he’d have handed that thing to me, I would’ve passed out too,” said Ron consolingly. “I’ll never forget what it did to me before I destroyed it. . . .”</p><p>But Harry wasn’t listening. Ron didn’t understand. Harry hadn’t just been visited by unpleasant memories of the locket. It was as if every demon, every evil thing he thought he’d vanquished or left behind, had resurrected themselves from the pit of hell and taken root in Harry’s very soul.</p><p>“I wonder how he even got it. D’you think McGonagall gave it to him?”</p><p>“I have to go,” said Harry, getting clumsily to his feet.</p><p>“Back to class? Take another minute, mate, you’re white as a ghost—”</p><p>“No, I need to leave. Make some excuse for me . . .”</p><p>“Harry, wait, let me just fetch Hermione, I’m sure she’ll know what to do, why you’re—”</p><p>
  <em>“No.”</em>
</p><p>Harry shoved rudely past Ron, who had been blocking the bathroom door, and stumbled into the hall. The past kept rising like bile within him, threatening to spill out, to become real again. As Harry made his way out of the Ministry, vision blurred with tears, his mind continued to attack him: hundreds of dementors descended upon him, a dagger pierced his flesh as he stood pinned against a gravestone, then he was locked inside a dark cupboard without food . . . </p><p>Harry supposed it was a result of his intense desire to reach his cottage that he did not Splinch himself when he Apparated in his shaken state. The bright red door materialized in front of him, promising a small sanctuary from prying eyes. With trembling fingers he unlocked the door and shut himself inside.</p><p>He made it to the bottom stair before he heard a voice.</p><p>“You’re back early,” said Ginny brightly from the kitchen.</p><p>“What are you doing here?” Harry called sourly, climbing the stairs and not looking at her. He was trying to blink away the image of Quirrell’s face, burned and boiled beyond recognition, screaming in agony. But it only shifted and morphed into Snape’s ashen face as he staunched the bleeding in his neck and whispered his final words. . . .</p><p>“I thought I’d try to make that Irish stew we talked about.”</p><p>“Don’t bother!” Harry shouted from the top of the stairs.</p><p>“Harry, what’s wrong?” He heard her small feet padding up the stairs after him.</p><p>Harry entered his bedroom. “Just go home, Ginny.” He slammed the door behind him to remind himself that he was in his own home and not fourteen years old, crouched behind a stone plinth in a graveyard in Little Hangleton, seconds from death.</p><p>The bedroom door opened again and she stood in the doorway.</p><p>“What happened?”</p><p>The scar on the back of Harry’s right hand seemed to tingle. <em>I must not tell lies.</em></p><p>“Nothing happened. Just leave, Ginny. I don’t want to see you right now.” Harry pulled off his shoes and threw them to the floor. He glanced at Ginny, who did not look nearly as hurt as he’d have liked her to. He could tell at once she wasn’t leaving.</p><p>“Tell me what happened. I can help.”</p><p>Harry rolled his eyes callously and walked to the window. “Go away.”</p><p>Ginny closed the door, sealing them in the bedroom. “No.”</p><p>Why could she never just do what he asked? Harry’s headache gave a fresh throb of pain and Sirius fell through the Veil, a laugh frozen on his face. It had been Harry's fault. . . .</p><p>How many people had he taken to their deaths? How many more deaths must he suffer because he was foolish enough to care, to love? Images assaulted his mind at random: Dumbledore tumbling from the tower, Dobby bleeding out in his arms, Cedric’s body falling dead at his feet—</p><p>“Harry. Tell me.”</p><p>Her intractability infuriated him.</p><p>“I don’t want to talk about it.”</p><p>She stared at him defiantly. “Did something happen at training?”</p><p>“Stop it!”</p><p>“Stop what? Harry, I just want to h—”</p><p>“Just want to <em>help</em>?” Harry spat, yanking off his cloak and throwing it across the room. “You can’t help. No one can. You will never understand.”</p><p>“Understand what? What won’t I understand? Just tell me!”</p><p>“You think it’s that easy? You can’t—you can’t fix me, Ginny!”</p><p>“I’m not trying to fix—”</p><p>“You have <em>no </em>idea what I’ve been through. You will never understand what I’ve seen, what I’ve had to endure.” The scars all over Harry’s body and soul seemed to prickle.</p><p>Now Ginny was finally angry. She stared at him in disbelief, her brown eyes flashing. “Why do you always seem to forget that I’ve been controlled by Voldemort too? I’ve dealt with Horcruxes too? I’m one of the few people in the whole world who <em>could </em>understand!”</p><p>“It’s not the same.”</p><p>“That’s because you don’t want it to be!” She crossed the room to him and Harry avoided her, walking around and back toward the bedroom door.</p><p>“No, you weren’t there for it all, you don’t know—”</p><p>“Because you want it to be that way!” Ginny cut off his path to the door and cornered him. “You won’t let people in!” Harry tried to dodge her, enraged by her unjust words. “We could help you! I can help you!”</p><p>Harry finally shoved past her and wrenched the bedroom door open and stormed into the hall. Ginny followed as he stomped back down the stairs.</p><p>“Harry!”</p><p>He spun around. “I <em>DO</em> LET PEOPLE IN!” he roared. “But in case you hadn’t noticed, everyone I’ve ever let in has either betrayed me or died!”</p><p>“What about Ron and Hermione? What about me?”</p><p>Harry scoffed at her and continued down the stairs toward the kitchen. “It’s only a matter of time,” he growled.</p><p>“Fine!” she shouted, coming down after him and trapping him in the kitchen. It was littered with half-chopped vegetables, pots and pans, and a large glass mixing bowl. “You’re an island! You’re so mysterious and no one gets you. Just live alone all by yourself in your little cottage with your fucking peppers and your Playstation and just never let anyone in. Because that’s the only way you can be sure you won’t get hurt again!”</p><p>A sudden surge of rage forced him to draw a sharp breath and clench his fists. He fixed her with a lethal glare. “Get out.”</p><p>“No.”</p><p><em>“GET OUT!” </em>Harry exploded, and he grabbed the large bowl Ginny had been using and threw it against the wall with all his force, smashing it into a million pieces. “I DON’T WANT YOU HERE!” All four burners of the gas stove erupted into towering flames and every single cabinet and cupboard burst open at once, releasing a torrent of contents clattering to the floor and sending clouds of spices and flour to mushroom through the air.</p><p>Ginny stared at him fixedly. “You don’t scare me.”</p><p>Harry charged her. “DON’T YOU GET IT?” He roared in her face. “I’M DONE WITH YOU. GET OUT OF MY HOUSE! I—DON’T—WANT—YOU.”</p><p>The rage licked at Harry’s insides and suddenly it was not enough to yell at her or smash things. In a mad rush he seized her and bent her over the bannister, shoving her skirt up and ripping her underwear. He freed himself from his pants, spat in his palm and readied himself, and took her from behind with one decisive thrust, leaning over her and grunting as he fought to possess her—</p><p>But then she’d pulled free and had him pinned against the wall, her hand a vice-grip around him, stroking too roughly, biting his neck painfully—Harry spun her around and pressed into her again, grabbing a fistful of red hair and pulling her head back; Ginny threw her hands against the opposite wall to plunge deeper. Wrestling her to the floor face-down he mounted her again, one hand choking her around the throat, and she thrust her hips back against him angrily, their bodies slamming together obscenely until Harry was lying flat on top of her—suddenly she threw him off and straddled him, pulling his shirt off along with her own. Harry sat up and bit her hard through her bra and she exclaimed, tugging his hair and cranking his head back for a violent kiss, her teeth clattering against his. Pulling off her bra she pushed him back flat, gripping his jaw with one hand as she rode him ruthlessly, forcing him to look her full in the face.</p><p>“Is this what you want?” she taunted, eyes blazing.</p><p>With a snarl he pushed her off and they scuffled on the floor, Harry trying to tear off her skirt and Ginny fighting to remove his pants. Harry won, though one leg had been freed from his pants. He kicked them off, pushed her to hands and knees and took her once more from behind, making her cry out again. She reached a hand between her legs and he yanked her hair again—with an arch of her back she tipped her hips up against him, allowing him to find more warm, wet depth—forcing a moan from deep in his throat.</p><p>“Harder,” she urged. He obeyed.</p><p>As he drowned in her cries of something between pleasure and pain, Harry’s whole existence became defined in the following moments by the oblivion of Ginny’s soft walls, and he plundered with abandon, convinced that if he possessed her, was united with her, part of her, inside her, possessed <em>by</em> her, that she could not be taken from him. Inextricably linked, they would dive as one into whatever darkness awaited ahead—he would face anything if only he could feel her come, moaning his name, one more time—</p><p>“Fuck—<em>Harry</em>—”</p><p>As she cried out and clenched around him, Harry surrendered to his own demise and gave Ginny everything he had.</p><p> </p><p> </p><p>Lying in bed hours later, Harry and Ginny listened to the rain pattering on the roof. Ginny rested her head on Harry’s bare chest, and he combed idly through her hair with his fingers, both of them exhausted and near sleep.</p><p>Ginny traced her nails along the hair below his navel. “I know you might not want to talk about it now,” she said softly, “but whenever you do . . . I’ll listen.”</p><p>It was the perfect thing to say. Harry squeezed her.</p><p>They fell asleep where they lay to the sound of the rain, but at some point in the night they’d rolled away from each other, backs touching. Harry woke to the sound of Ginny making small noises in her sleep, as if she were a whimpering child. Harry touched her shoulder and she stirred.</p><p>“Harry?”</p><p>“Right here.”</p><p>She rolled over and wrapped her arms around him, pulling him close.</p><p>Barely whispering, she said, “Oh—Harry—I dreamed you died. Hagrid carried you out of the forest, but you never woke. No one was there to protect my mum from Voldemort, and I watched her die. . . .”</p><p>She pressed her face against his chest, holding him tight. Harry felt her tears on his skin.</p><p>“That day was the worst day of my life. I thought I’d lost you.”</p><p>“You didn’t. I’m alive. I’m right here.”</p><p>Ginny breathed in the smell of his skin before easing him on his back. Eyes holding his, she ventured a hand between his legs, caressing until he was ready, and then she slipped him inside her. She stayed bent over him as her hips rolled slowly, deliberately, their faces inches apart, eyes seeing only each other.</p><p>“I never want to lose you.”</p><p>They seemed to travel out of his bed, to a place distant and elsewhere and only theirs. Her hands were his, his skin became hers, their breathing blended until he wasn’t even sure who had spoken. They moved as one.</p><p>“You won’t.”</p><p> </p><p> </p><p>The next afternoon at training, Auror Robards kept Harry behind after everyone else had left.</p><p>“Potter, I want to discuss the incident yesterday, with the locket.”</p><p>“It won’t happen again, sir,” said Harry.</p><p>“You misunderstand me. I want to apologize to you, for bringing in the locket in the first place. I have been collecting Dark items for this course for weeks, and Minerva McGonagall was kind enough to lend it to me. Perhaps I had been overzealous in including it. I had thought, given your history with the locket, that you could enlighten the class on Horcruxes in a way that I could not.</p><p>“I underestimated the effect it would have on you, and for that, I apologize.”</p><p>Harry appreciated his words, but his face grew warm with shame at the memory. What kind of Auror would he be if he fainted every time he saw a piece of jewelry?</p><p>“I suppose that proved to you once and for all that I don’t belong here,” Harry said glumly.</p><p>“On the contrary,” said Robards, sitting at his desk. “It reminded me of how you have triumphed over countless obstacles, and it demonstrated a healthy respect for Dark objects, something that, sadly, many Aurors do not share.”</p><p>Harry looked into his gray eyes.</p><p>“We all have dark pasts,” he went on. “Some darker than others, perhaps.” And the lanterns around the room illuminated the deep gash atop Robards’ head, and Harry wondered for the hundredth time how he’d gotten it.</p><p>Perhaps he was imagining it, but after their meeting, Auror Robards regarded Harry differently that week. He even gave him a curt nod when Harry finished first in an obstacle course Robards had set.</p><p>That Friday evening after training, Ron and Harry rode their car and motorcycle together, racing down open country roads as the sun set ahead. They stopped to take in the darkening view of the mountain range they had just climbed. Everything was turning a deep purple. They hadn’t spoken much since Harry’s episode, and Ron had been awkward around Harry the past few days.</p><p>“Ron, I’m sorry about the other day. I know you were just trying to help.”</p><p>Ron didn’t meet his eyes, his face impassive as he gazed out over the mountains.</p><p>“Harry? I have something to tell you.”</p><p>Harry looked at him apprehensively. Ron had never sounded so serious. “What?”</p><p>“I’ve asked Hermione to marry me.”</p><p>Harry broke into a smile, relief flooding through him. “Well, of course you have.”</p><p>“I haven’t told anyone else.”</p><p>“I don’t think they’ll be surprised,” Harry laughed.</p><p>“I wanted to tell you first.”</p><p>Ron continued to look over the vast expanse in front of them. “I can’t believe she said yes. She’s the best thing that ever happened to me and I don’t deserve her.”</p><p>“Have you set a date?”</p><p>“September first. I picked it. I, eh . . . wanted to do it on the day we met,” Ron said, grinning.</p><p>“I remember. She told you you had dirt on your nose.”</p><p>Ron laughed and took in the deep purple horizon. “I think I knew then, somehow. . . . you know?”</p><p>Harry nodded. “Yeah.”</p><p>Ron became very serious again and finally met Harry’s eyes. “Will you be my best man?”</p><p>“Only if I get to get you terribly, fantastically drunk.”</p>
  </div></div>
<a name="section0011"><h2>11. A Backyard Wedding</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Summary for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
            <p>Ron and Hermione get married, and Harry wonders what might in store for his future with Ginny.</p>
          </blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>"Maybe now that Ron’s getting married Mum’ll finally stop harassing me to wear some stupid, white dress,” said Ginny in Harry’s bed one summer morning where she was reading Harry’s just-delivered copy of the <em>Daily Prophet</em>.</p><p>Harry handed her a plate of Chelsea buns, having only thrown on a pair of underwear to go downstairs and fetch them from the oven. “I wouldn’t count on it. I think I saw her fashioning a veil out of the curtains last time we were at the Burrow.”</p><p>Ginny took the plate but stared at him, horrified. “You’re not serious.”</p><p>“Ah, maybe it was for Hermione,” waved Harry with a grin.</p><p>Ginny glared at Harry and tore off one of the buns.</p><p>“So, are you nervous about the match today?” The Holyhead Harpies had their final League match against the Montrose Magpies that evening.</p><p>“Not nearly as much as poor Iona. Gwenog thinks if she can catch the Snitch within the first few minutes we can pull into third place in the League. That’s all Gwenog’s been talking about for a month. ‘We have to be top three, we have to be top three!’ Iona’s been practicing overtime and running herself ragged. She dropped a towel after practice the other day and just started crying. She’s cracked.”</p><p>“How many points do you need to get into third?”</p><p>“One-hundred and seventy. But the Magpies only need thirty.” Ginny pulled off another bun. “Mm, this is definitely not good pre-match fuel, but damned if they’re not delicious.” She took a large bite. “Great buns, Harry.”</p><p>“I like yours, too.”</p><p>Ginny threw a bun at Harry’s face, but he caught it, laughing, before it hit him.</p><p>Ginny left shortly thereafter to attend her pre-match meeting with the rest of her team and Harry met Mr. and Mrs. Weasley, Ron, and Hermione at the Burrow to take a Portkey up to Scotland for the match.</p><p>“Wands, please, wands,” barked one of the security guards at the gate as the five of them approached the stadium. The crowd in front of them had queued up as the guards confiscated their wands before they entered the stadium. “Expecting a rowdy crowd this evening, you lot, just taking a few extra safety precautions. Wands, please . . .” Harry and Ron glanced warily at each other.</p><p>“I’m not giving up my wand,” muttered Harry as Ron’s parents and Hermione obediently got in line.</p><p>“Hang on . . .” Ron reached into his jeans pocket and Harry gaped as his arm sunk in to the elbow as he rummaged. “Taken to carrying a bunch of George’s wares, you know, Decoy Detonators and Peruvian Instant Darkness Powder and such, things I thought would come in handy as an Auror, but they were a pain to carry around.” He kept digging into the impossible depths of his pocket. “Hermione taught me how to do that Undetectable Extension Charm and I’ve done it on several pairs of pants. . . .”</p><p>Harry laughed at the sight of Ron digging laboriously through his own jeans pocket as if he were trying to scratch his ankle through it. Several passersby gave him curious looks.</p><p>“Aha—!” Ron pulled out two wands. “These’ll do.” He handed one to Harry.</p><p>“Brilliant!” said Harry quietly as he rolled the rubber wand in his hand.</p><p>“Wands, please!” cried the security guard as Harry and Ron finally approached and forfeited their fake wands. The guards waved them through.</p><p>“Excellent,” said Harry, patting Ron on the back. “Robards would be proud.” Harry intentionally did not mention the irony that their currentAuror course was Magical Security, and that while he was certain Robards would be pleased to know Harry and Ron had refused to go anywhere unarmed, Harry knew they had just broken basic security rules.</p><p>“Yeah, imagine how stupid the League’s gonna feel if some Dark wizard chooses tonight to avenge Voldemort’s death and we’re the only blokes who can stop him.”</p><p>“I think we could take him,” said Harry, and they grinned at each other.</p><p>As it happened, the game was indeed a violent one, both inside the pitch and within the stands themselves. Ginny had said the Montrose Magpies only needed three goals to secure their standing in the top three in the League, and so they played a wicked, menacing offense; the Harpies needed two goals in addition to the Snitch and so played a deadly defense. In the stands, forest green clashed with pitch black and the din of shouting, chanting, and screaming was deafening. A large flock of black and white magpies swooped low over the stadium at intervals, releasing a torrent of stuttering screeches and threatening to take out of the eyes of those clad in forest green.</p><p>The Magpies’ Chasers whipped through the air in a tight formation and pummeled the Quaffle and the Harpies Keeper straight through the center goalpost. Ginny and the other Harpies only barely managed to scrape a goal of their own. The Magpies stole the Quaffle and rent through the air to score once more. Seconds later there was a foul against the Magpies and a violent fistfight broke out a few rows below the VIP box where Mr. and Mrs. Weasley, Harry, Ron, and Hermione were.</p><p>“Is this really better than having wands?” shouted Ron as hundreds of spectators were jostled to and fro; the spirit of the fight had spread and the entire western side of the stadium had become a storm of fists and shouts. “Just let one of the blokes jinx the other one and be done with it!”</p><p>“Let’s see if we can find our favorite Holyhead Harpies fan, shall we?” called the commentator over the din, clearly trying to distract the stadium from the massive fight. A giant spotlight wandered dramatically around the perimeter of the stands.</p><p>“Oh no—” but Harry was too slow; the spotlight landed on him, Ron, and Hermione, and the portion of the crowd not currently engaged in drawing blood cheered and applauded. Harry squinted at the blinding light.</p><p>“How is Harry Potter feeling, we wonder? His girlfriend’s team is surely to be brutally crushed here tonight, folks. A devastating loss for the Harpies, who won’t even place in the top three—how does Potter feel?”</p><p>Harry gestured with two specific fingers just how he felt before Hermione shoved his hands out of sight, but not before the crowd erupted in more cheering and, in Ron’s case, raucous laughter. Harry expected <em>that</em> would be in the paper next day.</p><p>Quickly moving the spotlight away from Harry’s obscenity, the commentator refocused on the match. High above them, Harry saw that the Magpies’ Seeker, having no need to catch the Snitch at all and especially not before his team scored thirty points, had taken to hovering near the Harpies’ Seeker, Iona, blocking her view as she searched for the Snitch and taunting her loudly. Gwenog shot a Bludger his way and, as he was too busy blowing raspberries in midair, gave him a shiny, black eye.</p><p>Below, Ginny managed to shoot the Quaffle through one of the goalposts to animalistic applause and cheering.</p><p>“NOW, IONA!” shouted Gwenog. Harry looked at the scoreboard; the Harpies and Magpies were tied at twenty points. Iona began in earnest to look for the Snitch, while below, the Chasers engaged in a furious battle of wills; more than ever, both teams were desperate to keep the other team from scoring. The Magpies’ Beaters assaulted Iona with Bludgers, occasionally thwarted only by an enraged and terrifying Gwenog and the other Harpies Beater.</p><p>It seemed to drag on forever, Iona’s frantic search for the Snitch and the stalemate of clashing Chasers below. The Harpies didn’t dare score and risk losing possession, but instead kept passing the Quaffle between them at short distances and fending off the Magpies.</p><p>Then it happened—Iona dove and the Magpies Seeker was centimeters behind. A Bludger came out of nowhere and smacked Iona directly in the nose with a sickening crunch, spurting blood everywhere, but still she did not abandon her dive. Harry strained to find the Snitch in their flight path, but saw no telltale glint of gold. They were headed straight for the stands. Where was it?</p><p>Suddenly, Iona darted left and the Magpies Seeker, who did not pull up in time, crashed into the tangle of fighting spectators to monumental groans and jeers from the rest of the crowd. Harry’s eyes followed Iona as she swooped low, leaving a trail of blood in midair, and she reached for something—</p><p>“SHE GOT IT!” Harry yelled. The stadium exploded in yells and cheers. Iona soared over the crowd, wiping blood out of her eyes with one hand and clutching the golden Snitch in the other. She waved it above her head as Ginny and the other Chasers swarmed her and pulled her into a hug. The sea of green beneath them roared and thundered.</p><p> </p><p> </p><p>Ron and Hermione were married at the Burrow on a warm September evening, on the spot in the orchard where Bill and Fleur had been married. Seventy-five white chairs sat neatly on either side of a center aisle, lined with royal blue flowers. At the end of the aisle, a gauzy white sheet had been draped over the branches of a large oak tree to form a simple, elegant arch. Paper flags had been strung over the ceremony space and were rustling gently in the breeze. The sun was setting over the trees, casting a golden light, and a hundred tiny fairies were flitting about like so many lightning bugs in the early dusk.</p><p>As Bill, Charlie, and Percy bustled around the orchard seating the last of the guests, Harry and Ron stood aside from everyone else a few minutes before the ceremony was supposed to start. One of Harry’s wedding presents had been decent robes for Ron to wear, and he looked dapper in well-fitted and fringe-less midnight blue robes, with a white cornflower as a boutonniere. But at the moment, Ron was experiencing a fair bit of nerves; beads of sweat had collected around his hairline despite the cool breeze.</p><p>“I have no idea how to be a husband, Harry,” he was saying, pacing back and forth in the tall grass by the edge of the woods. “What if I screw it all up? What if she leaves me?”</p><p>Harry watched him, amused. “You’ll be great, Ron. Remember how you were before all those Quidditch games, and how well you did once you got over yourself?”</p><p>Ron snapped around to face him. “You haven’t got any Felix Felicis on you, have you?”</p><p>Harry finally laughed. “Not at the moment, no.”</p><p>The harpist, a beady-eyed woman in chartreuse robes, began playing a lilting, romantic overture.</p><p>“Oh, bloody hell, oh, Merlin, oh <em>f</em>—”</p><p><em>“Ron. </em>Look at me. You’re going to be fine. And I’ll be right there next to you.”</p><p>Breathing heavily, Ron nodded.</p><p>The two of them joined George, Ron’s groomsman, at the end of the aisle next to an ancient wizard, the same one who’d married Bill and Fleur. Mrs. Weasley, seated on the front row in daisy yellow robes, was already crying, and Mr. Weasley was patting her leg soothingly. He smiled at Harry. Mr. and Mrs. Granger, seated across the aisle from Ron’s parents, were some of the only non-red-haired guests. Looking over the crowd, it was comprised mostly of the extended Weasley family, but Harry saw many familiar faces, including those of Luna, Neville, Dean, Seamus, Parvati Patil, and, of course, Hagrid. Harry then noticed Ron fidgeting with his robes, so he subtly touched his hands to stop him.</p><p>George leaned into Harry. “Five Galleons Ron trips on something before the night’s over.”</p><p>“You’re on,” Harry hissed. Though he supposed George was on the winning side; Harry thought it would be a miracle if he could get Ron on the other side of these vows.</p><p>Fingers flying, the beady-eyed harpist plucked a new song, more grandiose and melodious than the first, and everyone instinctively looked back at the start of the aisle. Out from the back door of the Burrow came Ginny, Hermione’s maid of honor and only bridesmaid, and Harry’s hand actually went to his chest—she was stunning in an ethereal, flowing sapphire dress that seemed almost dangerously translucent, and she’d pinned her hair to one side, a flower tucked behind her ear. Someone gave a low whistle.</p><p>Harry managed to close his mouth before she came to the end of the aisle, but when she winked at Harry, all he could do was stare.</p><p>The music swelled and, as one, the guests stood. And floating out of the Burrow like a vision in a dream came Hermione, unescorted, in a creamy gown overlaid with delicate filigree that trailed behind her in the grass. She carried sapphire blue cornflowers and her hair was swept up in a sophisticated updo, braided around a dainty bit of white flowers. Harry spared a glance at Ron, whose face Harry could only describe as one of pure awe.</p><p>As Hermione walked down the aisle accompanied by the celestial music, the fairies wafted around her emitting small sighs of ecstasy, making Hermione seem ever more like an angel. The guests whispered approvingly as she passed, and Harry didn’t think she’d ever looked more beautiful.</p><p>When she’d reached Ron, the wizard presiding over the ceremony asked the crowd to be seated and in a wheezy voice, proclaimed, “Family and friends, we find ourselves here this evening to share in the joy of love.” The fairies left Hermione and arranged themselves among the white arch above them, holding their minuscule hands and giving the remarkable appearance of electric string lights.</p><p>Ron seemed unable to stand still, shifting from one foot to the other and scratching his ear over and over. Harry pressed a foot on Ron’s for a moment, and that seemed to help.</p><p>“Ronald and Hermione, we come together not to mark the start of a relationship, but to acknowledge and strengthen a bond that began long ago. It is our honor to stand witness to your vows to love each other and to come together as one.”</p><p>Hermione then faced Ron and was instructed to say her vows, and Mrs. Granger began to sniffle loudly—Mrs. Weasley reached across the aisle and handed her a handkerchief. Ginny caught Harry’s eye from over Hermione’s shoulder, and she held his gaze throughout the rest of Hermione’s vows.</p><p>When Ron began to speak, his voice had somehow become clear and true with no hint of nerves at all. “I Ronald, take you Hermione, to be my wife and partner. I promise to laugh with you in times of happiness <em>and </em>sadness”—George voiced a loud assent behind Harry, causing titters throughout the guests—“and to stand with you in times of need. Through the best and the worst, I will trust you, listen to you, honor you, and celebrate you. Today I commit myself to you for the rest of my life.”</p><p>Harry was suddenly overcome; he swallowed a lump in his throat and blinked his eyes—a great swell of happiness seemed ready to burst from his chest, like a phoenix whose wings were too large for the space in which they were contained. In Harry’s opinion, this evening had been a very, very long time coming.</p><p>The old wizard’s words drifted in and out of Harry’s ears until he gave Harry a pointed look. With a jump Harry remembered he was supposed to be producing the rings. Wiping his eyes roughly behind his glasses, Harry quickly dug the rings out of his pocket and handed them clumsily to the wizard, to more chuckles from the crowd and giggles from Ginny.</p><p>Ron and Hermione exchanged rings and a few more words, and Harry tried to compose himself. Finally the wizard waved his wand over Ron’s and Hermione’s heads, and a shower of stars fell upon them.</p><p>The wizard, asking everyone to stand, spoke again.</p><p>"It is now my honor and privilege to pronounce you husband and wife. You may now seal your union with a kiss.”</p><p>The fairies swirled and spiraled around the couple as Ron swept Hermione into a deep kiss, tipping her backward, and the crowd whooped and cheered, with especially loud hollering coming from Dean and Seamus. The fairies then escorted the newlywed couple back down the aisle where they disappeared into the Burrow.</p><p>In one smooth transition, the fabric archway magically disappeared, the chairs floated away and rearranged themselves around small tables on the outskirts of the orchard, and a long table materialized with wine, brandy, and food. Several people exclaimed as a large wooden dance floor grew from the earth beneath their feet. The fairies came back to flit through the air among the guests, and a group of Irish musicians came bustling out of the Burrow to replace the harpist, carrying all manner of fiddles, flutes, banjos, bodhráns, and bagpipes.</p><p>Within seconds, the band had struck up a lively tune and Ron and Hermione reemerged from the Burrow holding hands high over their heads and everyone surrounded them, cheering and whistling, as they made their way onto the dance floor.</p><p>Ron and Hermione locked elbows and danced around each other, laughing all the while, as everyone clapped in time to the music. Ron, in his elation, grabbed Hermione’s hands and spun her around, to the crowd’s delight. Then Mr. and Mrs. Weasley were on the floor holding hands and masterfully executing some sort of jig, their feet kicking and flailing this way and that. Soon a large cohort of Weasley cousins took up the dance floor, hopping around and clapping their hands.</p><p>It was a sea of bouncing red hair—the only Weasley who didn’t join seemed to be Percy. Harry laughed from the sidelines as George jumped into the fray, leaping in the air feet above everyone else.</p><p>When the song was over, everyone applauded the band and Harry went to get a drink as a fresh song began. Dean, Seamus, and Neville were already at the food table.</p><p>“I wish my mum cooked like this,” said Seamus, holding a plate full of a little bit of everything.</p><p>“My mum doesn’t cook at all,” said Dean in deep red robes, sipping some wine and looking out at the dancers. “I’m glad to see Ron in some decent robes for once, but you know, I kind of miss the moldy lace.”</p><p>Harry laughed, drinking from his own glass of wine. “Yeah, me too.”</p><p>“So, you’re still with Ginny, then,” Dean said to Harry, not quite posing it as a question. Seamus smacked him on the arm. “What? I’m just asking. And just because that Rita Skeeter says it’s true . . .”</p><p>“Er—yeah, I am.”</p><p>“Good,” said Dean, though he didn’t seem to mean it; he was watching Ginny wistfully as she laughed on the dance floor. “Really. I mean, if it can’t be me . . .”</p><p>“Have a drumstick,” Seamus said, offering one to Dean and seeming to bring him out of a trance. “It’ll taste better than your foot.”</p><p>“Harry,” called Neville from where he knelt nearby in the garden. “D’you know what they’ve got planted here? I’ve never seen sprouts like these. . . .”</p><p>Harry went to investigate as the crowd applauded the band, mostly to get away from Dean. But he’d barely inspected the plants before deep drums rumbled from the musicians and a new song with an impossibly fast tempo rang throughout the orchard.</p><p>A hand clasped around Harry’s arm and tugged him toward the dance floor.</p><p>“Come here, best man!” shouted Ginny.</p><p>“Oh, I can’t—”</p><p>“I need a partner for this one!” Ginny drew him right to the middle of the floor, took his hands, and started dancing, falling into step with the other couples on the floor. Harry tried to mimic her movements, but she was too quick and he too clumsy. Next to them, George danced boisterously with one of his great aunts, who was surprisingly spry herself.</p><p>“Don’t think, Harry!” George called, noticing Harry struggling.</p><p>Harry watched Ginny’s feet, trying to get the steps down, but all of a sudden people were switching partners and Harry found himself hand in hand with another one of Ron’s great aunts who wore too much lipstick. She stepped on Harry’s feet repeatedly, but Harry was sure that was more his fault than hers—then they’d switched again, and he was with Mrs. Weasley, who seemed delighted at finding him on the dance floor. She took the time to try to teach Harry the steps, but it was hopeless; less than thirty seconds later he’d switched again, and Luna faced him.</p><p>“Hi, Harry!”</p><p>Luna was blissfully unaware of the correct steps and even the cadence of the song, swaying and swinging her arms however she pleased. Harry found her hardest to dance with because there simply wasn’t anything to hold on to but he had a good laugh with her. Then he was swept next to yet another Weasley relative he didn’t know, and she seemed very displeased at Harry’s inexpert feet—or perhaps she always squinted; her glasses were very thick.</p><p>Next, Harry came face-to-face with Hermione, who was laughing and shrugged at Harry. She also didn’t know the steps, but she was better at improvising than he was. Her hair was already falling down and she looked all the more lovely for it.</p><p>Finally, after several more trod-on toes, Harry made his way back to Ginny. Her face was pink and she was laughing so hard she could barely keep up the steps herself. This made Harry laugh, and soon he didn’t mind how silly he might have looked.</p><p>The sun set over the trees and some of the only light came from the fairies, still flitting around and sighing contentedly. The wine and brandy flowed freely, and many guests continued to dance while others moved on to eating large amounts of food and finding private conversations on the edge of the woods.</p><p>Harry had found a small table to rest his feet and have some wine. On the dance floor, Mr. Weasley was spinning Hermione around and showing her a few steps. Mr. and Mrs. Granger were dancing too, though they’d opted for a simpler two-step. George and Ginny took up the middle of the dance floor with an impressive and perfectly synchronized partner dance and several onlookers stood and clapped to the rhythm, cheering them on. Harry spotted Bill and Fleur laughing and holding their infant daughter, Victoire, along the shadows of the trees.</p><p>Ron came over holding a plate piled high with drumsticks and mashed potatoes.</p><p>“Well, you did it,” Harry said, pouring Ron a glass of wine as he sat down.</p><p>Ron immediately ripped off a chunk of meat. “Best decision I ever made.”</p><p>A little while later, George, having just left Ginny on the dance floor, cruised by their table on the way to the food, looking extremely put-out. “I’m not made of money, you know, Potter!” he shouted.</p><p>“What’s that about?” Ron asked thickly through another bite.</p><p>“No idea.”</p><p>One of Ron’s uncles came over, sipping a large glass of brandy, to congratulate Ron, and evidently to impart some very specific advice on how to please a woman. (Harry chose this moment to quietly slip away.)</p><p>Back at the drinks table, a sweaty Hermione was chugging a glass of water. Harry hadn’t had a chance to talk to her all night.</p><p>“Congratulations, Hermione,” he said, hugging her.</p><p>“Thanks, Harry!” She kissed him on the cheek. “I hope you know that even though you’re the best man, you’re an honorary bridesmaid too!”</p><p>“Ah, I forgot my dress,” joked Harry.</p><p>Hermione laughed and refilled her water glass. “So.” She took a big gulp. “When are you and Ginny doing this?”</p><p>“Doing what?” Harry reached for a wine bottle.</p><p>She gestured to the reception. “Getting married.”</p><p>He froze in the middle of pouring himself a glass of wine. “Erm . . . I’m not sure that’s something she’s interested in.”</p><p>“But you are?” Hermione asked shrewdly. “You two haven’t talked about it?”</p><p>Harry took several large sips of wine. “Not really.”</p><p>“Hm.”</p><p>The two of them looked out across the dance floor, where Ginny danced with her father, laughing and spinning in the fairy lights, her sapphire dress flowing around her like rivulets of deep water.</p><p>“I don’t know . . .” said Hermione, pouring herself her own glass of wine. “I see the way she looks at you . . . and if you ask me, you don’t wear a dress like that to a wedding for no reason.”</p><p>Harry got another glance of Ginny in the dancing crowd. She always stood out to him like a candle in the dark, but tonight especially, in that dress, she radiated something new.</p><p>“Oh—Harry!” called Mrs. Weasley from the food table. “Would you be a dear and get more brandy? The casks are so heavy . . .”</p><p>Harry made to walk toward the kitchen, but just then he spotted Ginny leaving the dance floor. To his surprise, she took a seat by herself at a table near the edge of the woods—she hadn’t stopped dancing all night. Several fairies had flocked to her, floating over her head and illuminating her sheer dress. They fled when Harry approached.</p><p>“Have I told you yet,” Harry said as he sat down, “how much I’m enjoying that dress?”</p><p>Ginny’s eyes glittered with something wicked, bewitching. “I wore it for you.”</p><p>A fireball shot down to Harry’s navel. “I’m off to fetch more brandy from the kitchen. . . . Care to join me?”</p><p>Wordlessly, Ginny followed Harry through the thick crowd into the Burrow, past a beet-red Ron and his uncle, who was still rambling very loudly and demonstrating something very complicated-looking with his hands.</p><p>In the kitchen, Harry led Ginny into her darkened bedroom, and she had enough presence of mind to close the curtains overlooking the orchard before Harry took hold of her.</p><p>He clambered to find her bare skin beneath the folds of the dress as Ginny groped all over him. Moving fabric aside, his hands quickly discovered she wore nothing beneath the dress and with a thrill of urgency Harry pressed her up against her desk, the chair clattering noisily to the floor.</p><p>Ginny unzipped Harry’s pants, her breath hot in his ear.</p><p>“The brandy’s in the kitchen, you d—” George banged the bedroom door open and Harry and Ginny shot apart. George took them in and then left, shouting, “Ten Galleons to me!”</p><p>“Oh, no,” said Ginny exasperatedly, fixing her dress. “He’s going to collect from Ron—he bet someone would get caught snogging by the end of the night.”</p><p>“Well, that’s not technically what we were doing, was it?”</p><p>Ginny gave him a sharp look. “Would you like to clarify for George, or shall I?”</p><p>“Point taken.”</p><p>They left the Burrow to find George now talking animatedly with Ron. Harry and Ginny avoided them, sneaking along the edge of the wood toward the dance floor, but Harry didn’t miss Ron shout <em>“What?!”</em></p><p>The band was playing a slower song now, and couples were simply swaying back and forth on the dance floor. Hermione was dancing with her father. Placing a hand on her lower back, Harry pulled Ginny close and held her other hand to his chest.</p><p>“Sorry I got us caught,” Harry said into her ear.</p><p>“That’s all right. Now George can pay me the five Galleons he owes me.”</p><p>“For what?”</p><p>Ginny grinned. “I bet him you would cry during the ceremony.”</p><p>“Ah,” Harry laughed.</p><p>The night wore on and the guests luxuriated in the evening, happily deep in drink. Harry himself had a few more glasses of wine, though not nearly as many as others had clearly had. Several Weasley cousins had decided to start singing boisterously with the band, sloshing brandy. Ron and Hermione took the dance floor for a final dance, and just a few yards away, hidden in the shadows of the woods, Harry spotted George and Angelina Johnson locked in a fierce embrace.</p><p>Around midnight, Ron and Hermione rode off in Ron’s Mustang (magicked to drive itself as neither passenger was fit to drive) and everyone waved and shouted their goodbyes. It was almost two o’clock in the morning before most of the guests had left, and bits of food and empty glasses littered the grass in the orchard. But the night didn’t seem officially over until Mrs. Weasley, a bit too drunk, started flirting with the band. She sat on the bassoonist’s lap and a laughing Mr. Weasley had to get her up and put her to bed. Harry, Percy, and George cleaned up the orchard (though Harry and George weren’t much help as they got into a tipsy food fight with bits of food on the ground) and Bill and Charlie magically removed the tables, chairs, and dance floor.</p><p>Harry finally climbed the stairs to Ron’s room, took off his shoes, and collapsed onto the bed.</p><p>The door creaked open. Ginny walked in wearing her usual frayed, oversized t-shirt as a nightgown.</p><p>“What a party,” she said, flopping on to the bed next to Harry.</p><p>“Come to finish what you started, Weasley?” Harry flirted. He was still slightly, pleasantly drunk.<br/>Ginny raised her eyebrows. “I believe <em>you </em>started it, scarhead.”</p><p>“Nope. You did, wearing that dress with nothing underneath, bouncing around all night.”</p><p>“Oh, you’re sloshed,” Ginny said jokingly, removing Harry’s jacket and pulling a blanket over him.</p><p>“Hey.” Harry grabbed Ginny’s wrist as she turned to go. “I need to tell you something.” She came back to him, and Harry held her gaze, feeling nervous.</p><p>He’d never once said the words to anyone in his life. Two people had been taken from him before he could speak the words, and one had been taken before he’d truly learned their meaning. He’d always thought he’d cursed those close to him by caring, by drawing them into his world, into his fight. And so Harry learned to keep the words safeguarded in his heart like a vigil, never to be uttered. He thought he was sparing her, even protecting himself, by keeping his feelings a secret. Yet he had not saved the others by remaining silent, and as he looked up at her, red hair tangled and sweaty from dancing all night, he wondered if perhaps the way to break the curse was to say the words, as often as he could, whispered in her ear, shouted from rooftops, while they fought, while they laughed, while they cried. Perhaps he could keep her, could have her forever, if he only said the words.</p><p>He took a breath.</p><p>“I love you, Gin.”</p><p>She let out a small sigh, and her eyes suddenly seemed made of molten gold. Then she seemed to recover and grinned playfully. “Ah, well, I figured you might.”</p><p>She was trying to make light of it.</p><p>“No, listen to me.” Harry sat up and swung his feet onto the floor, still holding on to her wrist, suddenly very keen to make her understand. “I never told you . . . when I was in the forest that night, ready to die, you were the last thing I thought of. The smell of you, your lips on me, and I thought—if I have to die, at least I got to love <em>her</em>, even for that little bit.”</p><p>Ginny wasn’t smiling anymore. Indeed, she looked quite serious.</p><p>“And now I have a second chance and I just—this is it for me, Gin. I’ll never do anything better with my life than love you, and now that I can, I just want you to know, whatever you choose to do with your life, I know what I’m going to do with mine.”</p><p>Ginny let out a shaky breath. Then she climbed into his lap and told Harry she loved him too, without uttering a single word.</p>
  </div></div>
<a name="section0012"><h2>12. Fireworks</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Summary for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
            <p>Ginny meets Harry's godson, Teddy. Harry and Ron take their Auror training finals.</p>
          </blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>Later that fall, everyone found themselves converged upon the Burrow yet again. Ginny was home in between games, which meant Harry was there too. The Harpies had just won a game against their main rival, Puddlemere United. Ron and Hermione had returned from their honeymoon in Italy. Apparently Hermione had dragged Ron to every museum in the country, but Ron brightened when he talked about the food—only out of earshot of his mother did he say it was the best food he’d ever eaten. He and Hermione were now living in Hermione’s flat in London where they were both close to work.</p><p>Harry and Ron were now working on their last Auror training course, Ethics, before their final drills and tests. This one, like Magical Jurisprudence, involved heaps of reading and long lectures in training.</p><p>Bill and Fleur were also visiting with a six-month-old Victoire, a beautiful baby with light blonde hair, who enjoyed crawling around the Burrow and finding bits of mischief, causing her grandparents to follow her around like chickens in an attempt to keep her out of trouble. Apparently she had been quite a handful as a fast crawler and a finicky eater, and Bill and Fleur were happy to have help.</p><p>George was also staying for a few days, and he’d brought along a large selection of his wares from the shop to show around.</p><p>“I’m working on a new line of fireworks,” George was saying in his bedroom one morning as Ron and Harry rifled through Skiving Snack Boxes and crates of Fanged Flyers. Harry was staying in George’s room now since Hermione was with Ron upstairs. “One of the tenants next to my shop complained about all the different noises, though. Mrs. Tibbett is so old I can’t believe her ears still work, and she has twice as many as I do.”</p><p>“What noises?” Harry asked, picking up a pack of Ton-Tongue Toffee with newly designed packaging.</p><p>“Well, I was working on the fireworks, trying to enchant them with different charms, and I had some in the shape of lions and elephants and they roar and trumpet and run around when they go off, you know, and Catherine wheels that scream and spin and ricochet off the walls for a good long while, and I had a batch of, erm, not-quite-legal ones from Bulgaria that spell out in giant letters and shout out whatever words you say as they’re going off, and they all sort of—went off at once.”</p><p>“Did the Bulgarian fireworks spell anything?” Harry asked hopefully, laughing at the scene in his head.</p><p>“Oh, yes—I swore very colorfully when they went off. I think that’s what Mrs. Tibbett next door was most angry about, more than the noise. She claims she woke up in the middle of the night from the racket and looked out the window to what she called a ‘screeching wall of disgusting epithets.’ She’s trying to have me evicted.”</p><p>“Y’know,” Ron said importantly, “you just need to communicate with her. It’s like with me and Hermione. Marriage and business aren’t that different, you know.”</p><p>George and Harry risked a tired look at each other while Ron dug further in a brightly-colored box of Dungbombs. Ron had been almost insufferable since the wedding, doling out fatherly advice and sharing all the newfound wisdom he’d gained miraculously in about two months of marriage. Harry didn’t want to tell him he was doing a pretty convincing impression of Percy, but it might have to come to that if Ron didn’t let up soon.</p><p>That night, everyone sat down to dinner except George, who’d claimed he was still packing up a few things in his room and he’d be down shortly. Harry sat next to Percy, and he was on yet again about tales from work, this time about a pair of slippers that were hexed to transport the wearer instantly to Timbuktu and that had been released into a Muggle shoe store, causing mass panic and missing persons reports, and requiring a large handful of memory modification charms.</p><p>As they ate, Hermione and Ginny were talking among each other, Mrs. Weasley was bouncing her granddaughter on her lap, trying to feed her, and Ron was speaking with his father. Harry thought he heard the words “in my experience” and “since I’ve become a husband.” Ron combined with Percy was almost too much to handle.</p><p>Suddenly it was as if the Burrow were under violent attack. An explosion rattled the entire house and long screams came from the sky as if a band of banshees had set upon them. Everyone jumped up from the table as what sounded like gunshots echoed around them and smoke billowed down the staircase. It was then that Harry noticed the sky outside was flashing in reds, greens, oranges, and blues.</p><p>Harry dashed outside, and everyone followed, Victoire screaming in fear and Mrs. Weasley trying to protect the child’s ears.</p><p>Fireworks were going off in every direction, sprouting out in roaring, galloping lions, blaring, stampeding elephants, spinning, whizzing Catherine wheels bouncing against the walls of the house and against trees in the orchard to land dangerously in the woods beyond, and others still produced small sparks that swarmed around like wasps and even more smelled distinctly of raspberry or exploded into giant neon bubbles. The source of the fireworks was somewhere upstairs, and in a flash of light, Harry saw that there was a gaping hole in the Burrow where George’s bedroom used to be.</p><p>When the fireworks had died down and the smoke had cleared, George stood exposed in the roofless, open maw of his charred bedroom, then smiled and waved sheepishly at his family below.</p><p><em>“GEORGE!” </em>shrieked Mrs. Weasley, handing a screeching Victoire to Bill.</p><p>Mr. and Mrs. Weasley stormed back inside the house.</p><p>“Run, George!” called Bill, laughing.</p><p>“’E could ’ave been ’urt, eet eez not funny!” cried Fleur, still looking up at George.</p><p>Hermione went to help with Victoire, and Ron and Percy followed their parents inside. Harry immediately heard angry voices as George evidently went downstairs, and Victoire howled ever louder.</p><p>Minutes later, they all stood in the kitchen, the damage assessed; the fireworks had caused practical as well as magical destruction, and Mr. Weasley, Bill, and Percy thought they could repair the bedroom within a few hours’ time, but they were arguing as to the best way to go about it, all while Ron insisted in the background that he could help, too. Bill had put Victoire on the floor in his haste to help his father, and evidently she’d crawled off, because Mrs. Weasley, Hermione, and Fleur were frantically looking for the child, stumbling over each other and calling her name in panicked voices.</p><p>Ginny and Harry stood useless in the kitchen.</p><p>“This place is a circus,” Ginny said as bits of George’s bedroom furniture came tumbling down the stairs and Fleur’s, Hermione’s, and Mrs. Weasley’s shrill voices in the next room repeated the same name over and over again like a flock of strange birds. “Let’s just go to our place.”</p><p>Harry, at first distracted by more yelling coming from upstairs, finally did a double-take. “<em>Our </em>place?”</p><p>Ginny looked up at him, startled. “I didn’t mean—I meant your place.”</p><p>“I found her!” Hermione emerged from the scullery holding Victoire. “She was on the mangle!”</p><p>“Oh, for goodness’ sake!” cried Mrs. Weasley, snatching Victoire from Hermione’s arms, Fleur fussing noisily after her. Then she called up the stairs. “BILL! <em>GEORGE!</em>”</p><p>A great crashing came from upstairs. <em>“WHAT?”</em></p><p>Harry and Ginny still stood in the kitchen, amid the chaos, with eyes only for each other.</p><p>“It could be our place,” Harry said softly.</p><p>“YOUR DAUGHTER ALMOST IRONED HERSELF IN THE SCULLERY!”</p><p><em>“Mum, we’re a bit busy up here!” </em>More crashing. “Ron, don’t touch that!”</p><p>“OH, TOO BUSY FOR YOUR DAUGHTER!”</p><p>
  <em>“MUM!”</em>
</p><p>“Really?” breathed Ginny.</p><p>“Meezus Weezley, ’and Victoire to me, please!” called Fleur desperately, barely audible over her daughter’s squeals.</p><p>“GEORGE, DON’T THINK YOU’RE NOT IN GOBS OF TROUBLE JUST BECAUSE YOU DON’T LIVE HERE ANYMORE!”</p><p>
  <em> “IT WAS A SODDING ACCIDENT!”</em>
</p><p>“Yeah,” whispered Harry.</p><p>Mrs. Weasley stormed up the stairs yelling after George, and Bill came crashing down after a shrieking Victoire. Someone screamed from upstairs—</p><p>“Ron, DON’T!”</p><p>Harry kissed Ginny in the middle of the kitchen as a fresh batch of fireworks erupted in the sky.</p><p> </p><p> </p><p>Ginny moving in to Harry’s cottage did not alter many aspects of their lives, except firstly that while he finished his final drills for Auror training, Harry could now look forward to sharing a bed with her every night rather than sporadically. And secondly, the cottage was suddenly much messier. Harry had underestimated Ginny; how could someone so small create such disorder? Her clothes hung from the unlikeliest places (though Harry had to admit he had some part to play in that): dresses draped over doors, shoes and socks on the stairs, sweaty Quidditch robes crumpled on the bedroom floor. Half-finished cups of tea littered the breakfast table, dirt was constantly being tracked in through the front door from the garden, and kitchen ingredients were always left out on the counter after some abandoned dinner recipe or potion. Harry supposed he might become irritated by this chaos eventually, but for now he was simply glad to have constant reminders of her presence, her nearness.</p><p>Harry and Ginny had expected Mrs. Weasley to put a stop to them moving in together, screeching that it wasn’t the proper way to do things. But to their surprise, Ginny’s mother had been elated and even helped Ginny move in, seeing the cottage for the first time.</p><p>“I guess she knows we’re sleeping together now,” joked Harry after Mrs. Weasley had left, as he and Ginny stood in the living room with boxes of things from the Burrow.</p><p>“Oh, she’s known for ages,” said Ginny airily, opening the first of the boxes.</p><p>“What?” Harry croaked.</p><p>“Ever since the summer after I graduated and you and I were sneaking off all the time. She didn’t believe I was staying with Hermione for a second.” She started pulling books out of the box.</p><p>“And if she knew, that means everyone else knew,” lamented Harry, thinking of all the mornings he’d sat next to Mr. Weasley at the breakfast table, sharing the paper. . . . Harry ripped open a box with a bit too much force. “Well, I feel like a git, prancing around the Burrow thinking I was being so smooth, and everyone knew the whole time.”</p><p>Ginny laughed, stacking books in her arms. “It’s really not a big deal, Harry. Mum and Dad weren’t so different. You don’t end up with seven kids being indifferent to sex.”</p><p>Harry took the box he’d opened, full of dishes, to the kitchen. “Okay, we’re done talking about this!”</p><p>They found a new rhythm and the cold weeks and months passed quickly, Ginny traveling for practices, and Harry finishing Auror training and attending games, but both always coming back to the same place.</p><p>One snowy morning, Harry came down the stairs still half asleep in his boxers and a t-shirt. Ginny sat at the small table in the breakfast nook with a cup of tea and wearing his hoodie.</p><p>“Happy Valentine’s Day,” said Harry, rubbing a sleepy eye behind his glasses and kissing her before going to the ice box. “You want pancakes?”</p><p>"Eggs.” Ginny flipped a page in the <em>Daily Prophet</em>. “There’s a story in the paper of some tainted Valentine’s Day chocolate that’s making the rounds. Apparently someone snuck Veritaserum in a big batch and loads of people are being rushed to St. Mungo’s for the antidote. People were spilling all their deepest, darkest secrets and basically self-destructing their relationships. They interviewed one bloke in the waiting room and he confessed to an entire second family in Finland.”</p><p>“For the best then,” said Harry, cracking an egg over a pan.</p><p>“Another woman told her husband of twenty years that he’s never given her an orgasm.”</p><p>“They didn’t print that.” Harry snatched the paper from her and read as Ginny laughed. “You’re a filthy liar,” he grinned.</p><p>She took the paper back. “Get me some contaminated chocolate, then.”</p><p>Harry picked up the spatula. “Fine, I’ll get you chocolate and you can get me another singing Valentine.”</p><p>That wiped the smirk off Ginny’s face. “I was eleven. Give me a break.”</p><p>“Now, how did it go . . . ?”</p><p>“Harry—” Ginny warned.</p><p>“Something like”—Harry cleared his throat and bellowed in a deep, throaty voice, in his best imitation of the dwarf who’d originally sung it to him, while acting out the words—“<em>HIS EYES ARE AS GREEN AS A FRESH PICKLED TOAD</em>—that’s my favorite line, by the way—<em>HIS HAIR IS AS DARK AS A BLACKBOARD</em>—”</p><p>“Your face is gonna be as flat as that pan if you keep it up,” Ginny shouted over the din of Harry’s singing.</p><p><em>“I WISH HE WAS MINE, HE’S REALLY DIVINE</em>—”</p><p>“You’re gonna burn the eggs.”</p><p>“—<em>THE HERO WHO CONQUERED THE DARK LOOORD!” </em>Harry dragged out the last note and finished with a bow.</p><p>Ginny crossed her arms, trying not to giggle. “Joke’s on you because you remember every word.”</p><p>“Yes, because a dwarf with angel wings and a harp <em>sat </em>on me in front of the entire school and bellowed that song! It’s seared into my brain!”</p><p>“Well, I didn’t know he was going to do all that!” laughed Ginny. “Believe me, I pictured it very differently.”</p><p>Harry came to sit next to her and kissed her on the cheek. “No one has ever given me a gift <em>quite</em> like that one.”</p><p>She elbowed him. “You’re lucky there wasn’t a second verse.”</p><p>“You could make one now,” said Harry in her ear, slipping a hand around her waist. “There are quite a few body parts you missed in the first one.”</p><p>Ginny brought her lips to his just as the smell of something burning hit Harry’s nose.</p><p> </p><p> </p><p>In April, Harry took Ginny along with him to his regular visit to Andromeda Tonk’s house. It was Teddy’s third birthday, and Ginny had not officially met Harry’s godson.</p><p>“Ginny! It’s been too long!” Andromeda, with her long, black hair now speckled with gray, pulled Ginny into a hug on her porch before ushering them inside. “I read about you all the time in the paper—what a season you’ve had!”</p><p>“Oh, thanks, yeah. Big learning experience for me, to be sure.”</p><p>“You’re wonderful, dear!” Andromeda went into the kitchen for the tea tray.</p><p>“Harry!”</p><p>There was a tugging on his pant leg and Harry looked down: Teddy was standing there, looking up expectantly.</p><p>“Happy birthday!” Harry picked the child up in his arms, and as Teddy smiled at Harry, his blonde hair morphed into black strands just like his godfather’s. Harry laughed, and then pointed with his thumb. “This is Ginny.”</p><p>She approached timidly, as if not sure how she’d be received. Teddy studied her very seriously. “Ginny,” he said slowly.</p><p>“That’s right,” said Ginny.</p><p>Teddy giggled, and his hair morphed into bright red locks and freckles sprouted all over his face. Harry and Ginny laughed.</p><p>“He’s been doing that a lot lately,” chortled Andromeda as she came back in with the tea. “He loves to mimic people. We passed a poodle on our walk the other day and he sprouted pure white curls and a snout. I haven’t laughed so hard in my life.”</p><p>Teddy dug excitedly into the breast pocket of Harry’s shirt where he usually kept sweets for his visits.</p><p>“No candy today,” said Harry. Teddy looked disappointed. “But I have something better.” He set Teddy down and reached for the long, thin parcel he’d set by the door. “You want to unwrap it?”</p><p>Teddy plopped onto the carpet and dug his small fingers into the paper as Andromeda handed Ginny a cup of tea.</p><p>“What is it, Teddy?” asked Andromeda.</p><p>“A broom!”</p><p>Teddy unsheathed the toy broom from its wrappings and immediately tried to swing one leg over it, but fell over.</p><p>“Here—” Harry got up to help, setting Teddy properly over the broom, and next second the boy was gone, zooming around the corner and into the hall. Harry ran after him. “I got him!” he called over his shoulder as Ginny and Andromeda laughed.</p><p>Squealing with delight, Teddy zipped around the dining room table in laps as Harry supervised, only occasionally having to pull Teddy out of a corner or away from breakable china. After about fifteen minutes, Teddy seemed to have gotten the hang of it, and Harry was getting a bit dizzy watching him go round and round in a circle. He ducked his head back into the hall to hear what Andromeda and Ginny were up to while still keeping an eye on Teddy.</p><p>“And this is little Dora at five,” said Andromeda in a loving voice, and Harry knew she was showing Ginny Tonks’s baby photo album. Harry had seen it about a dozen times himself.</p><p>“She was such a willful child. Never did what she was told. Used to drive her father and me mad, but I suppose I had to learn she was just independent. Did things her way.”</p><p>“I always admired that about her,” said Ginny as Harry stopped Teddy from toppling sideways off the broom.</p><p>“She never did things just for the sake of it. But boy, if she got it in her head she was going to do something, you had better not get in her way. She wanted to be an Auror since she was ten, did you know that? She did everything she had to in order to get in, didn’t let anything stop her. One of the top in her class, too.”</p><p>“She was an amazing witch,” said Ginny. “She was like a big sister to me.”</p><p>Andromeda chuckled. “And when she decided she wanted to be with Remus, well she didn’t waste a second. Never been much interested in marriage, but once she’d met him, that all changed.” Andromeda chuckled again. “I suppose when you know, you know, eh?”</p><p>“Yeah . . .”</p><p>Andromeda paused to blow her nose. “Wish they’d gotten married sooner. They could’ve had more time with little Teddy. Dora did a lot with her life, but I’ll always remember, when she first held Teddy, she said Remus was her greatest achievement and Teddy her masterpiece.”</p><p>It was some time before Ginny spoke.</p><p>“If you’ll excuse me . . .” she said roughly, clearing her throat.</p><p>“Of course, dear.”</p><p>Harry turned his full attention back on Teddy, and next moment he felt a small hand on his arm.</p><p>“Hey,” said Harry. “I’m coming back in there, I just thought I’d wear him out a bit before his nap.”</p><p>Ginny reached up and kissed him with a tenderness Harry had never felt in her before.</p><p>“What?” Harry asked. Her eyes were that molten gold again.</p><p>“Nothing.”</p><p> </p><p> </p><p>Harry and Ron sat their final Auror training exam and drills at the end of May. It took the entire day. There was a prolonged and arduous written portion, where they had to write lengthy answers to complex questions regarding poisons and antidotes, magical jurisprudence, criminal investigation, magical security, and ethics. Everyone scribbled furiously for hours. Harry had never taken such a difficult test, and he had never felt better after one, either. He’d studied like mad and kept up with his reading so well for the past three years that answering the questions, while tedious and exhausting, was like telling an epic story he knew by heart. He rarely had to pause even to think about what he was writing; it flew out of him like floodwaters from a dam. Then, there was a demanding physical portion, which turned out to be an elaborate obstacle course they each had to successfully traverse one by one.</p><p>Harry was one of the last students to go, and when he walked into the courtyard that Auror Robards had transformed, he saw that the obstacle course took up the entire space, complete with various magical creatures that Harry assumed were stand-ins for the criminals he’d be facing in the real world. He had to hide or otherwise disguise himself from a graphorn, a terrifying and tentacled beast, sneak up on and capture a Demiguise, an invisible creature that can predict its hunter’s movements, making it nearly impossible to catch, and navigate his way around various Dark objects and weapons. He had to select the only non-lethal goblet in a row of poisons and drink it, climb over walls without magic, sprint as fast as he could to catch a magically sped-up Quaffle, and (his favorite) fly on a broomstick to catch a Snitch, as well as otherwise maneuver his body around obstacles and hurdles without the help of his wand. Harry laughed despite himself several times throughout the course—he felt like he’d been preparing for this test for over a decade. It was as though his life, as random and chaotic and terrifying as it had been so far, had prepared him perfectly for this afternoon. While the other trainees had emerged from the course white-faced and petrified as if they’d just endured some personal hell, Harry found it rather fun.</p><p>It seemed to go on for hours. By the end of it, sweaty and exhausted, Harry thought he’d finished—until he turned around, and saw Auror Robards facing him with his wand out.</p><p>“And after all that,” said Robards, “your suspect may still put up a great fight. You’ve got to be ready.”</p><p>And Robards lunged, a wordless spell flashing from his wand, but Harry was ready—he shielded himself and almost immediately threw back a counter spell. And so it went, back and forth. After it seemed like they’d been dueling for almost fifteen minutes, Harry blocked Robards’s Impediment Jinx and almost got him with a Leg-Locker Curse, but Robards parried and shot a Stinging Hex right at Harry’s chest. He dodged it clumsily, tripping over his own feet, but sent a nonverbal <em>Stupefy </em>at Robards. He didn’t wait to see if it landed, rolling over quickly and getting to his feet. Robards had stumbled, but now he thrust his wand forward—</p><p>“<em>Expelliarmus</em>!” cried Harry. Robards’s wand flew out of his hand, sailed through the air, and Harry caught it breathlessly.</p><p>He stood there, panting, as Robards straightened his cloak. Then he took out his small silver stopwatch chained to his hip and clicked it.</p><p>“The fastest yet,” Robards finally said, with a hint of a grin on his face. “I must admit, Potter. I haven’t seen anything like you in my career. I don’t think I would have seen anything like you in a hundred years, if I’d been in this position long enough. I suppose Shacklebolt was right, eh?”</p><p>Harry grinned back, wiping his sweaty bangs out of his face.</p><p>“I should have expected nothing less,” muttered Robards, as if to himself, “from the man who defeated Voldemort.”</p><p>“Auror Robards,” said Harry, still trying to catch his breath. “Can I ask you something?”</p><p>“It depends.”</p><p>“How did you get that gash on your head?”</p><p>Robards broke into a smile despite himself. “You know, raccoons really are a blight. I’ve always hated them.”</p><p> </p><p> </p><p>It was somewhere around two o’clock in the morning, and the static summer air, still uncomfortably warm, sat like a wall right outside the open bedroom window, which had been opened to coax even the slightest breeze.</p><p>Harry sat up in bed, working by wand light on the report of his very first solo arrest after officially becoming an Auror. He and Ron had passed their tests over a year ago, and they had been on several small raids and missions since then, but this had been Harry’s first case he’d done himself.</p><p>A draft of warm air wafted through the window and Ginny stirred.</p><p>“You still working?” she murmured.</p><p>“Just want to make sure it’s good enough.”</p><p>“I’m sure it is,” said Ginny, rolling toward him as Harry continued to scribble. The heat had begun to curl his paper.</p><p>“Hey,” Ginny said. “I was thinking.”</p><p>“Yeah?” Harry licked his thumb and turned the page.</p><p>“We should get married.”</p><p>Harry’s heart skipped a beat. He looked down at her, half in focus; his glasses had slid down his nose some time ago in the humid air. Hardly daring to believe her words, he lay down his paperwork.</p><p>“What about all the adventures you wanted to have before you got married? I seem to remember you saying you wanted a bloody nose, was it? In the Ukraine? And you wanted to fly over Iceland.”</p><p>Ginny took his papers and, straddling him, reached across to set the papers on the nightstand.</p><p>“Oh, I’m not finished having adventures,” she mused casually. “I just figure I’d rather have them with you. So we’re getting married.” Then she pulled his glasses off and put them on top of the papers.</p><p>Harry skimmed his fingers over her legs, somehow cool in the warm bed. “So that’s that?”</p><p>She began undressing him.</p><p>“That’s that.”</p><p>“You make a convincing argument,” murmured Harry, flooded with a supreme happiness, as Ginny slid down the bed, her red hair disappearing beneath the sheets.</p><p> </p><p> </p><p>It was a windy afternoon in late October, one week before the wedding. Harry sat at the breakfast nook hastily writing a report as the windows rattled in their frames, trying to get as much work done as possible before he took time off. A long-forgotten cup of coffee sat on the table, and Harry’s hair stood on end from his fingers relentlessly passing through it as he concentrated.</p><p>“Hey, Harry!” called Ginny from upstairs. “Can you help me with this?”</p><p>Harry set down his quill and walked up to the bedroom where he found Ginny half dressed in her Quidditch robes. She handed him her jersey.</p><p>Harry slid it up her arms and over her shoulders. Harry always liked Ginny in her jersey—the forest green brought out the strawberry highlights in her hair, the honey in her eyes.</p><p>“What do you think?” Ginny asked pointedly through the mirror facing them. She was watching him closely. “It’s new.”</p><p>“It looks nice,” Harry said earnestly, smiling over her shoulder in the mirror.</p><p>Then he saw it—emblazoned across her shoulder blades, where the name “WEASLEY” used to read above a large number three, there were now the letters spelling “POTTER.”</p><p>Ginny saw Harry’s astonished, confused face in the mirror.</p><p>“You’re—you're taking my name?” Harry asked. He’d assumed she wouldn’t; she was such an independent person, after all, and Hermione hadn't changed hers. . . .</p><p>“I am,” she said brightly, turning around to face Harry. “I reckoned there were enough Weasleys wandering around . . . and not nearly enough Potters.”</p><p>Harry blinked at her stupidly. He was deeply honored, moved—but had she done it simply because she thought that’s what he’d want?</p><p>“Are you sure?”</p><p>Ginny grinned at him exasperatedly, like she couldn’t believe he could be so thick. She slid a hand behind his ear, drawing his forehead to hers.</p><p>“I’m your family now, Harry. And I want everyone to know it.”</p>
  </div></div>
<a name="section0013"><h2>13. Stag and Doe</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Summary for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
            <p>In a series of flash forwards, Harry and Ginny deepen their relationship. Harry gives a guest lecture at Hogwarts. Harry takes Ginny to Privet Drive.</p>
          </blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>In a strangely reversed deja vu, Harry paced in the sunset orchard of the Burrow in a black suit and white waistcoat with a sprig of rosemary pinned to his chest, understanding with sudden clarity why Ron had been so nervous on his wedding day. The waistcoat was uncomfortable and his heart was vibrating in his chest like a hummingbird.</p><p>Just a few feet from him stood a large, rustic arch made of intertwining branches, greenery, and wildflowers Luna had crafted by hand. A small collection of mismatched, eclectic wooden chairs faced the arch and garlands of rosemary, eucalyptus, and thyme hung among macrame tapestries that swung along the edge of the surrounding trees.</p><p>Mr. Weasley had wanted to try his hand at stringing up some electric lights, and so bronze strands of them stretched overhead across the open space as well as throughout nearby branches.</p><p>Bill, Charlie, Percy, and George had been assigned to place security enchantments around the orchard; Rita Skeeter had been trying to sneak her way into the backyard all afternoon to see the wedding. She’d been desperate for fresh content after demand for her articles had dropped off—Cho Chang’s piece in <em>Witch Weekly </em>had caused quite the anti-Skeeter stir. Harry supposed it was still Hermione’s threat of having her arrested as an unregistered Animagus that kept Skeeter from transforming into a beetle to watch the ceremony from the trees.</p><p>Ron, in a black jacket and juniper green waistcoat, got Harry’s attention and beckoned him surreptitiously to the end of the aisle. Everyone had been seated and Harry took his place, fingers trembling.</p><p>The soft strumming of the guitar filled the cool, peaceful air, and Harry’s heart leapt into his throat. Eyes glued to the back door of the Burrow, Harry didn’t know at first what the crowd was suddenly gasping at; looking around, he saw Hagrid guiding two large creatures toward the ceremony—a stag and a doe, pacing silently along the edge of the woods. Everyone sighed in wonder as they stood together serenely in the grass, alternating between grazing and surveying the scene.</p><p>Hagrid, his hair slicked back with what looked like motor oil, leaned into Harry’s ear.</p><p>“Since yer parents couldn’ be here, I though’ . . ." His black eyes were misty as he smiled down at Harry.</p><p>“Thank you,” Harry choked, smiling.</p><p>Hagrid took his seat and as the guitar strings lilted and swayed, everyone looked over their shoulders back at the Burrow.</p><p>Finally, Luna, a bridesmaid, walked out of the back door giving every appearance of a curious wood nymph having wandered out of the forest to see what all the fuss was about: she wore an understated pale green gown with a modest crown of flowers and greenery in her long blonde hair, and she seemed to float down the aisle without a care in the world, handing bits of her bouquet to random guests. Once she’d finally made her wandering way to Harry and Ron, she was followed by Hermione, maid of honor, who glided out of the house looking radiant in a simple gown of juniper green and flowers in her hair as well. Harry grinned at her as she approached and took her place at the altar—her presence made Harry feel suddenly calm.</p><p>The guitar music brightened and bloomed and, once again, Harry was peering at the wrong spot—eyes having flitted back to the Burrow’s back door, there instead came a movement from around the side of the house a greater distance away.</p><p>Harry wasn’t prepared for the sight; a dazzling woman in a blush lace gown sat sidesaddle on a white horse speckled with gray, led by Mr. Weasley. Her radiant hair seemed taken by flames as it caught the breeze in the setting sun, topped with a crown of lush greenery and white flowers. She appeared to Harry as some kind of mythological being, a glowing pink siren just plucked from the sea.</p><p>And she was there for him.</p><p>Everything that Harry felt for Ginny caught in his belly, then flooded throughout his body at once—the sensation was so overwhelming that tears brimmed at his eyes.</p><p>The horse took Ginny to the top of the aisle and she slid off gracefully, taking her father’s arm and holding an earthy bouquet of herbs and wildflowers. They walked together down the aisle, and the guests murmured, gasped, and whispered as they got a better look at the bride.</p><p>Mr. Weasley and Ginny passed a smiling Mrs. Weasley on the front row, who was already wiping her eyes and trying not to cry too loudly. Truthfully, she hadn’t yet recovered from the day Harry and Ginny had announced they were engaged; Harry certainly didn’t think his hearing had fully recovered.</p><p>Ginny took Harry’s hand as Mr. Weasley joined his wife, handing her a fresh handkerchief. As Ginny and Harry stood together, Harry’s heart was featherlight. He was sure if he’d had to produce a Patronus right at that moment, it would be his best one yet.</p><p>Hours later, when stars dappled across the sky and the wedding guests drank and laughed among oversized, comfortable pillows all around the orchard, Harry and Ginny sprawled on their own pillow away from the bulk of the commotion. Many guests had congregated around the warmly lit table of food, and as guitars and cellos played lazily by the woods, the stag and doe stood contentedly nearby, seemingly intrigued by the soft music. A few couples, including Neville Longbottom and Hannah Abbott, still swayed together on the wooden platform dance floor.</p><p>Harry took in these details in quick spurts—all night he could not seem to pull his eyes away from Ginny for more than a few seconds.</p><p>“Did you ever think we’d get here?” Ginny asked, lounging on her elbow and looking around across the crowd. Hagrid was attempting to dance with Hermione, spinning her and occasionally swinging her completely airborne. Ron and George were sniggering covertly by the food table with their wands out, no doubt enchanting the wine to make it twice as strong or perhaps the biscuits to make guests burp bubbles.</p><p>“For a while, no,” said Harry, watching Dean across the way chatting with Parvati Patil.</p><p>“You know, I never gave up on you,” said Ginny softly. She was looking at him steadfastly now. “I dated other boys like Hermione told me to, I got on with my life, had my own experiences . . . but I never stopped wanting you.”</p><p>She was interrupted as George and Ron ran past, chased by Mrs. Weasley, who was yelling and pelting bread rolls at them, which squeaked like rubber ducks when they made contact.</p><p>Ginny paid them no mind. “I might’ve seemed cool around you then, and on the surface I was, but inside . . .” Her eyes were dazzling in the dim light, picking up the sparkling electric lights and perhaps even a few thousand stars. “For all those years, every time you looked at me, even for a second, you gave me shivers.”</p><p>The night grew long and Harry and Ginny were impatient to leave their own party. Even as wedding guests still danced and drank, Harry gave their excuses and everyone rushed over to bid farewell, whistling and catcalling, as Harry and Ginny climbed onto his motorcycle and sped off, the glowing Burrow shrinking into the distance.</p><p>“Merlin, I’m tired,” said Ginny once they’d returned to the cottage. In the hall, they hopped and tripped over a pile of presents that had beenconstantly delivered to them over the past week mostly by strangers; the news of Harry Potter’s upcoming wedding had been front-page gossip in the <em>Daily Prophet</em>. Harry suspected it had been a slow news day.</p><p>“Ooh, this one’s new.” Ginny picked up a lumpy and strangely-shaped package with a large, golden bow.</p><p>“Don’t open anything until I’ve inspected them,” said Harry, loosening his waistcoat. “There’s no telling what some nutter’s sent.”</p><p>“You sound like Mad-Eye,” teased Ginny, setting the package down. She helped him remove his jacket. “You’re not going all paranoid Auror on me already, are you?”</p><p>“He had good reason to be that way,” murmured Harry, enjoying the feeling of Ginny’s hands undressing him and wishing dimly they would stop talking about Moody.</p><p>“Maybe,” said Ginny softly, moving to his belt. “But he had trouble trusting people. He needed someone to give him a swift kick in the pants.” She freed the belt from its loops with much too much force. “Someone to teach him how to be vulnerable.”</p><p>“Yeah, we’re generally taught against that in Auror training. Keeps us from dying, see.”</p><p>Ginny unzipped his trousers and reached inside. “Keeps you from living, more like.”</p><p>Lips on her neck just below her ear, Harry pulled Ginny up the stairs, hanging on to the bannister and the walls as they went. Once in the bedroom Harry lit a few candles around the room with his wand and when he turned around Ginny was wriggling out of her gown across the room.</p><p>“Shouldn’t I do that?” asked Harry, half amused, half disappointed.</p><p>The lace had fallen to the floor before Ginny had realized he’d spoken. She gazed at him as she unclasped her bra and slid her underwear off. The candlelight seemed to reflect on her white skin as if she were made of snow.</p><p>“Shall I put it back on?” she asked.</p><p>Harry quickly divested himself of the rest of his clothes. Crossing the room, he scooped a laughing Ginny in his arms and carried her to the bathroom in the hall.</p><p>They held each other underneath the hot water of the shower and within seconds the room was filled with steam. Harry got a glimpse of Ginny’s thick red hair turned slick and auburn under the water and he felt himself grow at the sight before his glasses fogged over completely. Still laughing, Ginny pulled his glasses off and put them blindly on her own face, drawing herself up to her full height.</p><p>“Right, that’s my final decision,” she said in a deep, stern voice, “and if you don’t get out of the way for the Keepers, I’ll hex you!”</p><p>“Is that supposed to be me?” laughed Harry, wiping his sodden hair out of his face.</p><p>She waggled her finger. “And Ginny, don’t call Ron a prat, you’re not the Captain of this team!”</p><p>Harry kissed her throat, the skin between her breasts, then knelt to reach her navel. . . .</p><p>“I’m the Chosen One, you load of gits, you have to do whatever I s—”</p><p>Harry had brought her hips directly over his mouth. Glancing up, he found Ginny had pulled his glasses on top of her head and was looking down at him with the most wonderful expression. Harry pressed his palms into her rear end to fasten her more firmly against his laving tongue and rough beard, shower water continuously dripping off his face. Lost in his deep inhales of her scent, he had no sense of how long they were there.</p><p>Only Ginny’s whispered command could draw him out of his reverie:</p><p>“Fuck me.”</p><p>Harry stood and took in her pink cheeks, her flushed neck and chest, her ragged breath.</p><p>It wouldn’t take long.</p><p>“Turn around.”</p><p>Ginny obeyed immediately, bracing her hands against the tiled wall, and Harry slid inside her easily as hot water pelted his back. He reached one hand around to continue where his mouth had left off and fell into a steady yet ever quickening pace with his whole body, slowly increasing in urgency.</p><p>Harry held on as Ginny finally cursed and writhed beneath him, but he lost his grip as Ginny’s knees gave out and she slid to the bottom of the tub, knocking Harry over. They collapsed under the stream of hot water, cackling and holding on to each other.</p><p>“Oh, I’ve broken your glasses!” said Ginny, pulling the broken frames from underneath them. “Let’s get somewhere less dangerous and I’ll fix them.”</p><p>They toweled off and made their way back to the bedroom, where Ginny retrieved her wand and repaired Harry’s glasses.</p><p>“I can’t tell you how many times these broke as a kid,” said Harry, putting his glasses on as Ginny joined him on the bed. “Went through an entire roll of duct tape over the years.”</p><p>Ginny didn’t seem to be listening as she nuzzled down his body toward his hips. Finally she murmured, “What’s duck tape?”</p><p>Harry smiled. “Never mind.”</p><p>She busied herself between Harry’s legs for a while and he leaned back, closing his eyes. He was long lost in the sensations before her mouth pulled off of him with a small popping noise.</p><p>“Do you trust me?”</p><p>Harry eyed her dubiously. He started to wonder whether it was a trick question, but there was no hint of her usual mischief in her eyes.</p><p>“Yes.”</p><p>Ginny then resumed her attentions, but now they were unfamiliar to him, yet braver, all-encompassing, as Ginny explored farther, further with her tongue, her fingers. Harry’s cheeks warmed with the heat of shyness. He felt exposed, laid bare. But upon instinct, his body opened up to her, and without thinking, he bent a knee to give her more access. Several moonlit nights could have passed for all Harry knew . . . he felt thoroughly consumed . . . swallowed whole. . . . He supposed he cried out eventually, but his mind made no record of it, as it had long since been dissolved into a puddle of blissful oblivion.</p><p>Sometime later, they lay beneath the covers, both strolling along the pleasant bridge between waking and sleeping.</p><p>“You’ve always been there, Harry,” hummed Ginny, her face buried in his neck. “You come to every one of my games, you help my dad at the Burrow . . .” She sat up to look at him. “You saved my mum in the battle, you saved Ron with that bezoar, you saved my dad from that horrible snake . . .” She smiled to herself. “You gave Fred and George the money to start their shop. You’re so good to Ron.” She ran a finger along his beard. “And you rescued me.”</p><p>Harry looked away. “It just sounds better when you list it.”</p><p>She took hold of his jaw, gazing at him straight on. “You were my family, all this time.”</p><p>Harry touched his lips to hers. “I love you.”</p><p>“I’ve always loved you.”</p><p> </p><p> </p><p>Harry and Ginny had precious little time together as a married couple in the weeks after the wedding. Ginny still had a demanding Quidditch schedule, and Harry had just received the news that he had been scheduled to go on his first big Auror mission, the details of which he couldn’t provide for Ginny, and the return date from which was unknown. As a result, they had been unable to go on a honeymoon and would likely be unable to have one for some time. The mission could last a week, it could be months. And—though neither vocalized the possibility—there was always the chance that Harry didn’t return at all.</p><p>Harry had been assigned to the most elite team of Aurors to capture a highly dangerous band of Death Eaters who had evaded capture after the Battle at Hogwarts. It gnawed at him that he could never tell Ginny any details, so after he told her when he was leaving, they spent very little time discussing his impending departure at all since there was nothing to be done for it.</p><p>“I got you a wedding present,” said Ginny late one afternoon a few days after the wedding. Any moment they didn’t have to be at work was spent together in bed, so Ginny had made this proclamation while resting her chin on Harry’s bare chest in their bedroom after they’d both raced home from work.</p><p>“You did?” Harry asked, rousing from almost napping. “I didn’t know we were supposed to get each other something.”</p><p>“Oh, we weren’t, but when I popped over to Diagon Alley this morning, I couldn’t resist.”</p><p>“What is it?”</p><p>Ginny slinked out of bed, which Harry regretted; he wasn’t sure he wanted the present so badly that he was willing to let Ginny out of his sight to fetch it. Although he did enjoy being able to see all her freckles at once as she crossed the room to the door.</p><p>“Now, I know what you’re going to say,” she went on. “But you can’t turn down this present. Nonrefundable.”</p><p>Harry’s curiosity was thoroughly piqued. “Just tell me what it is.”</p><p>“I’ll go get him.”</p><p>“Him?”</p><p>But she’d already disappeared into the hallway and out of sight. There was a clanging of metal bars, and a flapping sound, and next moment, Ginny returned carrying a massive cage containing the largest and angriest looking owl Harry had ever seen.</p><p>“Oh, Ginny—” started Harry in an admonishing tone, sitting up in bed. He didn’t want a new owl. Not yet.</p><p>“No, Harry, listen. It’s ridiculous that you don’t have your own owl. I know you miss Hedwig, but you’re a big fancy Auror now, and you send so much mail. Harry, I saw him in the Owl Emporium, and the clerk said no one wanted him because he was so scary and grumpy, but I just thought he was so handsome, and he’s actually an unusual breed for the store, a Eurasian eagle owl, I think”—she was speaking very quickly so as not to let Harry argue back—“and he’s apparently a very aggressive hunter, he’ll even eat geese, can you imagine? I saw him and he made me think of you.”</p><p>“That murderous, crotchety old owl made you think of me? Gee, thanks.”</p><p>“I mean, he’s sort of—impressive, don’t you think? Tough, and independent. A fighter.”</p><p>Harry examined the bird. It had black, prominent ear tufts extending through the top of its head and reaching down over its bright orange eyes like thick, angry eyebrows. It was making full eye contact with Harry, puffing its chest out as if to say, <em>I don’t care if you don’t like me.</em></p><p>Harry narrowed his eyes.</p><p>The owl flapped its wings furiously against the bars, letting out a deep-throated and monstrously loud hoot.</p><p>“I don’t think he likes being in the cage,” said Harry.</p><p>Ginny shot him a nervous look. “The clerk said it was a nightmare getting him in there in the first place. He nearly took her eye out. I haven’t taken him out of this cage that I bought him in. She said he’d be extremely aggressive and to only let him out once he knew who his new master was.”</p><p>“How would we know when that’s happened?”</p><p>“She said it depends on the owl. You could try giving him a few treats, or let him nip your finger.”</p><p>Harry had the impression that the owl would find treats deeply beneath him, and Harry was also not stupid enough to stick his finger in that creature’s cage and expect to get it back.</p><p>Ginny seemed to sense Harry’s hesitation. “She also said you could just let him out and see if he comes to you, but that with a new owl, especially older and more . . . stubborn ones, you run the risk of the owl just flying away entirely.”</p><p>“Well, he’s not much good to us anyway in a cage.”</p><p>Harry got out of bed and approached the metal bars. The owl continued to glare at him, and then pecked the latch of the cage door with its beak before looking at Harry again.</p><p>“I’m going to let you out,” said Harry quietly. Careful to protect his fingers, he unlatched the cage.</p><p>Immediately, the owl opened its great wings—Harry ducked—and flew right out the bedroom window. Harry ran to the window to see it disappear around the side of the cottage. It was an enormous bird, its wingspan as wide as Harry was tall.</p><p>Yanking on a pair of jeans, Harry raced downstairs and out the front door. Ginny followed, pulling on a robe.</p><p>The owl was circling the cottage like a vulture.</p><p>“Now what?” moaned Ginny, looking up.</p><p>Without really thinking about it, Harry stuck out a bent arm. The owl let out a terrifying screech, strangely deep and throaty. But next moment, it was circling lower and lower, until it dove. Harry’s instinct was to duck again, but he forced himself to stand still—and the owl landed heavily on his forearm, tucking away its massive wings and staring at him again with its imposing, hostile face. Harry refused to blink as he stared back, and the two of them regarded each other rather dubiously.</p><p>“Oh, Harry!” chirped a nauseatingly familiar voice from the street. Rita Skeeter had materialized on the sidewalk in lavender robes with a squat wizard brandishing an old-fashioned camera. “How is newlywed life treating the two of you? Mind if my associate snaps a picture or two?”</p><p>Harry opened his mouth to let out a stream of obscenities but then in a blinding flash the camera went off and the owl emitted an almighty screech, spreading its great speckled wings and diving straight at Skeeter’s and the wizard’s heads. Skeeter screamed at the top of her lungs and the photographer dropped the camera with a squeal. They ran off, Skeeter swatting at the owl to no effect with her alligator purse while the photographer trailed after her, sending poorly aimed jinxes at the bird with equal futility.</p><p>The owl chased the couple out of sight as Harry and Ginny cackled from the front yard. Seconds later, the owl sailed back down the street, swooping right at Harry. Again, he resisted the urge to dodge it and the owl landed on his right shoulder.</p><p>“Okay,” Harry laughed as the owl hooted contentedly, “he can stay.”</p><p> </p><p> </p><p>Harry had never been a big fan of events like these. With thick streamers, chortling masses of partygoers, clinking chandeliers, stuffy conversations, overcomplicated finger food, and little time to be alone with Ginny, the only thing Harry had looked forward to at the Quidditch gala was the overflowing drinks.</p><p>Truly, he shouldn’t complain; he wasn’t able to make most of these with his job, and this was the first (and perhaps last for a long while) that he’d been able to make. Plus, it was a rare opportunity for Harry to see Ginny in a truly sinful dress. Tonight, she wore a long, sleek, black number whose neckline ventured all the way to her bellybutton and which could boast of no back whatsoever. She seemed draped in a vague idea of a dress rather than in any actual material.</p><p>And while this should have made the evening more enjoyable for Harry, it only served to make it infinitely more insufferable. She was something to be viewed tonight as the star newcomer of the Holyhead Harpies and the fresh, exciting reason for investors to pull out their bags of Galleons, and thus she had to remain in the midst of things and not, as Harry would have vastly preferred, tangled in some nook or cranny somewhere with Harry’s face between her legs.</p><p>And so, as Ginny was paraded around like a prize to various journalists, sponsors, investors, and Ministry officials, Harry stood along the sidelines drinking in both healthy servings of firewhisky and Ginny’s form—so visible was it beneath the thing she claimed was a dress. Antsy, Harry pulled his hair out of his face.</p><p>“Harry Potter,” said a portly man who materialized to Harry’s left. “What an honor to meet you!”</p><p>Biting back the retort that the man had not exactly met Harry yet, as he had not introduced himself, Harry extended his non-firewhisky-holding hand and shook the wizard’s wrinkled fingers.</p><p>“Thabius Hackford,” said the wizard, inflating his chest and looking out at the crowd. “Potential investor, you see.” Harry thought that by the way the old man was leering at Ginny that he should go ahead and call himself an investor outright.</p><p>“So you’re the man lucky enough to take that woman home, I understand,” chortled the man, holding his belly.</p><p>Again, Harry bit back an acidic remark. “Yes, we were married just last month.”</p><p>“Wonderful, wonderful! Though I certainly hope no plans for—ah—additions to the family are in the works. I daresay that would complicate things a bit, insofar as winning the Championship is concerned.”</p><p>Harry’s tongue was growing sore with the amount of biting he was putting it through.</p><p>“Ginny’s focused on the goal, Mr. Hackford.”</p><p>“Oh, dear me, please call me Thabius! Gracious! ‘Mr. Hackford!’ Why, that was my father!”</p><p>Taking in the wizard’s triple chin, rotund belly, and ample wrinkles, Harry rather thought the man should have grown used to the idea of being a “Mr. Hackford” some forty years ago. But then again, Harry was growing quite drunk.</p><p>He smiled at the man. “Thabius, then.”</p><p>“And I trust we are now so familiar that I can call you Harry?”</p><p>Harry was struck with the thought that while this man was indeed a potential investor for the Holyhead Harpies, he also seemed rather keen on investing in a certain Boy Who Lived.</p><p>“Certainly, sir.”</p><p>“Well, then. I mean, one hears such tales, it’s a wonder you’ve not been immortalized in some sort of statue. . . .”</p><p><em>And you’d no doubt love to be credited for paying for one, </em>Harry thought.</p><p>Glancing at Ginny, who was surrounded by important-looking witches and wizards, Harry summoned the bartender and asked for yet another firewhisky. If he could not taste Ginny, firewhisky’s burning, warming, earthy tang was second best.</p><p>“I knew Dumbledore in my day,” said Thabius. “I hear you were rather close to him.”</p><p>Harry nodded, throwing back another drink. He’d lost count, but trusted the bartender was keeping up, as he kept eyeing Harry warily as if he expected him to drop dead at any moment.</p><p>“What a wizard,” said Thabius. “<em>What a wizard.</em>”</p><p>It was as though Thabius thought he’d discovered the man, as if he was the first to acknowledge Dumbledore’s greatness, rather than merely referencing a powerful wizard he’d likely only known in passing.</p><p>“How exactly did you know him? Sir?” Harry added the last part out of a reluctant politeness. He did not begrudge the Holyhead Harpies team another donor.</p><p>“Well, we went to school together, of course!”</p><p>Harry looked the man up and down again afresh; he had not seemed old enough. Though now that he examined him more closely, his hair, a flat straw color, seemed rather fake somehow; it did not catch the chandelier light in a natural way. And his wrinkled face, though deeply rutted with crevices likely present since the turn of the last century, seemed oddly flattened somehow, as if charmed to seem more shallow than they really were. Harry had a newfound appreciation for Dumbledore’s graceful willingness—eagerness—to age.</p><p>“But you look so young, Thabius,” cooed Harry, knowing it was exactly what the man wanted to hear.</p><p>Thabius giggled saccharinely. Harry thought he might puke at the sound.</p><p>“Oh, you flatter me, Harry, truly!”</p><p>“Did you have classes with Dumbledore?” asked Harry, suddenly yearning to hear details about Dumbledore.</p><p>“Oh, many. I was in Slytherin, you see—oh, don’t look at me like that! There may not have been a witch or wizard who went Dark who wasn’t in Slytherin, but not every Slytherin was bad! Note the distinction!”</p><p>Harry nodded, thinking of Snape.</p><p>“Yes, we had numerous classes together,” continued Thabius, keen to keep a rapt audience. “Charms, Potions, Transfiguration. Albus was most talented at those, though to say he was not spectacularly gifted in every subject would be a disservice to his memory!”</p><p>“He was the Transfiguration teacher before he became headmaster,” said Harry, remembering his adventure in Tom Riddle’s diary some ten years ago.</p><p>“Indeed, yes! Even at eleven he could turn a goblet into a ferret and a ferret into a clock and a clock into a goblet before you’d even opened your textbook, I say!”</p><p>“Were you close?” asked Harry, flagging down the harassed bartender for another drink.</p><p>“Some may say, yes. Though—well, I would only admit this to the most trustworthy of company, of which I’ve judged you a part, and only under the specific circumstance of having had several of these Giggling Grape Elixirs!” said Thabius, gesturing to the garish, fruity concoction in front of him. “I had rather a, well I’ll just say it—a <em>crush </em>on the man, dear boy.”</p><p>Harry choked on his newly delivered firewhisky. “Excuse me?”</p><p>“Oh, don’t think me out of turn in my affection toward the man—we studied regularly together in the library. Albus was exceedingly diplomatic when it came to inter-House relations, you see. He always saw the best in everyone,” Thabius gushed.</p><p>“Yes,” said Harry earnestly. “He did.”</p><p>“I’m afraid my feelings went quite unrequited, though, I must admit. While I considered myself a dearest friend of Albus, he never seemed to return my feelings, though it certainly wasn’t a lack of—ah—orientation. I soon learned he had developed feelings for one Gellert Grindelwald.”</p><p>Once again, Harry felt the unpleasant sensation of inhaling his drink. “What?”</p><p>“Oh, yes. They were both immensely talented wizards. It was no wonder they developed feelings for each other.”</p><p>“You mean Gellert Grindelwald, the Dark wizard Dumbledore is famous for defeating?’</p><p>“The very same! Oh, what a tragic story. That their affections should turn so sour. But alas, that is often the fate of star-crossed lovers. . . .”</p><p>Harry mused thickly at this fresh knowledge. He’d always wondered, suspected . . . but for Dumbledore to have had feelings for, even perhaps loved, his arch nemesis . . . It was too much for his drunken brain to process.</p><p>Mercifully, at that moment, Ginny seemed relieved of her constant duty of speaking to every single person at the gala.</p><p>“If you’ll excuse me, Thabius,” said Harry vaguely, eyes glued somewhere below Ginny’s back.</p><p>“Of course, my dear boy. Off you go!”</p><p>Harry set a Galleon on the bar even though it was an open bar and walked across the vast tiled floor toward Ginny.</p><p>“Yes, thank you, it was great to meet you too!” said Ginny to a departing witch in deep red dress robes.</p><p>“Is it time to leave yet?” breathed Harry into Ginny’s ear. She shivered into his touch, turning to face him.</p><p>“Not quite,” she said shrewdly, understanding in his eyes his keenness to leave. “There are a few more people Gwenog wants me to meet. . . .”</p><p>Harry looked across the room at Gwenog Jones, the captain of the Holyhead Harpies and the current bane of his existence as the reason for his inability to be alone with his scantily clad wife. She was wearing on-brand forest green robes with an overly ostentatious diamond barrette in her hair. Harry rather thought she should have left the barrette at home to demonstrate the team’s need for money instead of the surplus of it. But no one had asked his opinion; again, he was quite drunk.</p><p>“I say let them imagine who you are,” said Harry, sliding a hand around her waist. The silken fabric of her dress was like slippery oil.</p><p>“Do you think that’ll bring in money?” whispered Ginny, leaning into him.</p><p>“I think you’ve done more than your part wearing this thing.” Harry pulled at the fabric, finding it thin, measly, easily torn. . . .</p><p>“Fifteen minutes,” she said, turning to face him. "How many drinks have you had?”</p><p>“As many as it has taken to endure these people.”</p><p>“So, seventy-eight?” Ginny joked.</p><p>“Fifteen minutes,” Harry said firmly, noticing Gwenog and a journalist approaching them. “And then I have very specific plans for you in the loo.”</p><p>“I forget how shamelessly honest you are when you’re drunk.”</p><p>“Fifteen minutes.”</p><p>Harry resumed his post at the bar, though he chose a stool on the opposite end of Thabius Hackford, not quite finding himself drunk enough for a detailed recount of some tryst the man had had with Albus Dumbledore in the Restricted Section of the library.</p><p>For an unbearable fifteen minutes, in which he harangued the bartender for more drinks, Harry stalked Ginny like prey, watching her move between the reeds of people’s shoulders, the grass of partygoers’ mingled conversations, the cattails of strangers’ laughter. He had eyes for no one and nothing else.</p><p>Finally, fourteen minutes and fifty-five seconds had transpired and Harry found himself well within his rights to stand and approach his wife.</p><p>“Yes, we expect to do very well this year,” Ginny was saying to a man with a pad of paper, looking every bit like the male version of Rita Skeeter with a flash of blonde hair and a glint of greediness in his eyes. He was sizing Ginny up as if she were a cut of venison.</p><p>“Excuse me,” said Harry, placing a hand on the small of Ginny’s back. “If I could just borrow my wife . . .”</p><p>“But of course,” said the journalist, overawed all of a sudden and sizing Harry up and down as if measuring how difficult it might be to get an exclusive interview. <em>Not in all the world</em>, thought Harry, as he guided Ginny away from the party.</p><p>“Harry, he’s with <em>The Herald</em>, Europe’s biggest Wizarding newspaper!” hissed Ginny as he pushed her into an opulent hallway.</p><p>“And he’ll still be drooling where he stands when we get back,” said Harry, guiding her toward a remote restroom around the corner.</p><p>“Harry—”</p><p>But they were in the small tiled room at last and Harry had no patience for conversation.</p><p> </p><p> </p><p>Combat isn’t about attacking your opponent.”</p><p>Several of the students murmured amongst themselves dubiously.</p><p>“It’s about defending yourself,” continued Harry.</p><p>“But you’ve got to fight back!” said a pimply black boy wearing Gryffindor robes in the front row. A few of his classmates nodded around him.</p><p>“Only if you must.” Harry stood at the front of the fifth years’ Defense Against the Dark Arts classroom. Snow was collecting on the windowsills and a cold draft seeped through the stone walls. “But your first priority is getting yourself out. Don’t stick around to try out a few cool-sounding spells.”</p><p>A blonde Hufflepuff boy raised his hand.</p><p>“Yes, Mr. . . . ?”</p><p>“Rustle, sir,” said the blonde boy, who was beginning to turn red.</p><p>“What’s your question, Mr. Rustle?”</p><p>“Aren’t you—“ He looked around the room, where students seemed to be silently egging him on. He rounded back on Harry. “Aren’t you married to Ginny Potter?” The boy was beet red now, but he held Harry’s gaze doggedly.</p><p>“Erm—”</p><p>To Harry’s surprise, most of the boys in the classroom sat up straighter with eager expressions. Harry spotted a Holyhead Harpies emblem drawn on the front of Rustle the blonde boy’s notebook. From the looks on the students’ faces, Harry could tell the class wouldn’t focus on magical defense until he’d addressed this.</p><p>“Yes,” he finally said, clearing his throat and trying to sound casual. “Yes, I am. . . .” Several girls giggled.</p><p>“She’s a <em>wicked </em>good player,” gushed the pimply boy, in admiration and with the unmistakable tone of attraction. Several others agreed loudly.</p><p>“Did you <em>see </em>her last week, with the Sloth Grip Roll?” Rustle asked the class at large. “The Caerphilly Catapults Beaters had no idea what to do—”</p><p>The class devolved into loud, excited chatter and Harry stood there with his mouth slightly open. He was just guest lecturing; he had no experience controlling a class.</p><p>“As I was saying—”</p><p>“She’s so fast!”</p><p>“—have to use Omnioculars just to keep up with her during a game!”</p><p>“—If we could just get back to the matter at hand—”</p><p>“I’ve never seen someone fly like that!”</p><p>“And pretty, too—”</p><p>
  <em>“Gorgeous!”</em>
</p><p>“—got a poster of her up in my dorm. Well worn, mind you—”</p><p>“WHEN I FOUGHT VOLDEMORT,” Harry shouted, and the class quieted in an instant as if the entire room had just been submerged underwater. Harry had had a flash of a memory, of gaining control of Dumbledore’s Army members in the Room of Requirement. Yelling had always seemed effective. Everyone’s eyes were back on Harry, but their excited expressions had transformed into ones of shock and reverence—he had their full attention now.</p><p>“If I’d tried to attack Voldemort first”—a few students gasped quietly, but didn’t avert their expectant eyes, as if Harry were telling a terribly fantastic ghost story—“I wouldn’t be here to tell you how stupid that would’ve been,” Harry went on. “You’ll meet opponents you could never hope to defeat. Your goal is to survive, to get out, not to ‘finish’ them—it’s not a prize fight.”</p><p>“But <em>you</em> defeated V-Voldemort,” whispered a girl on the front row.</p><p>“That was . . . a unique situation,” Harry said kindly.</p><p>“Was it?” blurted the pimply boy. “Sorry, sir, but you defeated him, what was it . . . six times?”</p><p>The class dissolved once again into chatter, this time of confused debate.</p><p>“There was the Battle of Hogwarts, of course,” said a girl, ticking it off on her fingers.</p><p>“And the Triwizard Tournament . . .”</p><p>“The Department of Mysteries!” exclaimed a Hufflepuff boy from the back.</p><p>“No, Dumbledore fought him that time—”</p><p>“But Harry destroyed the Prophecy—”</p><p>“—and threw off his possession—”</p><p>“My brother told me all about the third floor corridor fight for the Sorcerer’s Stone!”</p><p>“—And don’t forget when he was a baby—”</p><p>It was strange for Harry to hear the story of his life speculated in this way, including events he didn’t think were even available to the general public. Rita Skeeter had been more thorough than Harry had known.</p><p>“And the Chamber of Secrets,” said Rustle, pointing at the girl who was keeping a tally on her fingers.</p><p>“You stopped You-Know-Who <em>and </em>saved Ginny that night, didn’t you?” said a girl with small braids throughout her hair, eyeing Harry in a way that made him rather uncomfortable.</p><p>“<em>So </em>romantic,” cooed her friend.</p><p>“It’s badass, is what it is,” corrected the boy next to her.</p><p>“Have you killed anyone as an Auror, sir?” asked the pimply boy over the clamor, leaning forward on his desk.</p><p>“Oh, the way he killed that Basilisk with that sword,” cried the first girl, as if she were retelling the daring adventures of some action hero, and not the haphazard flailings of a bumbling twelve-year-old boy.</p><p>“And the way he blew up all those dementors!”</p><p>“He didn’t <em>blow them up</em>,” said the blonde boy, rolling his eyes. “He banished them to another dimension!”</p><p>Harry sighed.</p><p>“All right, if you all would shut it, I’ll stop lecturing and we’ll pair up and I’ll teach you a few things,” said Harry, thinking of the only other thing that would keep them at least partially on task.</p><p>In an unnaturally speedy and orderly fashion that would’ve made McGonagall proud, the students leapt from their chairs and found pairs—though several students had lurched to the front of the room, hoping to be Harry’s partner.</p><p>“You three can work together,” Harry said, clapping the pimply boy on the shoulder. Then he addressed the class. “All right, <em>Expelliarmus </em>is an exceedingly useful spell. . . .”</p><p> </p><p> </p><p>He shouldn’t have left, they’d be wondering where he’d gone even now—he had only minutes.</p><p>The sight of his cottage greeted him like an old friend; it had been two months. And his heart leapt at the dim light coming from the front window.</p><p>He entered the kitchen and she was there finishing the dishes. Before she could even say his name, register that he was there weeks before he was supposed to be, he bent her over the counter wordlessly, without preamble, and took her.</p><p>She reached back hungrily as he pumped into her, pressing him deeper. He took a fistful of her thick hair and pulled her head back, not to kiss her, but to hear her gasp. Several freshly cleaned plates crashed to the floor. She arched her spine; he leaned back—the better to see.</p><p>Seconds later he was complete again, made full as he emptied into her.</p><p>She turned to face him, cheeks pink, eyes on fire.</p><p>He fixed himself and, just as suddenly as he’d arrived, disappeared through the front door and into the chilly darkness.</p><p> </p><p> </p><p>The new moon was a black hole in the cold night sky as Harry eased his way silently into the cottage. Atlas, as Harry had named him, hooted at him questioningly from his perch by the door, but Harry merely limped up the stairs, careful not to drip blood on the banister. In the bathroom, Harry lay his lit wand on the counter and by the dim light gingerly stripped off his filthy, torn, and bloody shirt. He finally got a look at himself in the mirror. Blood covered the left side of his face, where it had also dried and matted in his hair. The lenses of his glasses were shattered, his lip was split, and he was fairly certain he had a few broken ribs. He felt his side with a wince as he continued undressing.</p><p>All he wanted was a hot bath before a good night’s sleep, but he felt he ought to skip the bath for fear of waking Ginny. Leaving his clothes a ravaged heap on the floor, he dabbed at his face as best he could with a damp towel, trying to sponge off as much blood as possible.</p><p>“Harry?”</p><p>He spun around—Ginny stood in the hallway in her robe, with a look of utter terror on her face at the sight of him. Then in an instant it flashed into one of anger, even revulsion.</p><p>“I’d ask you what happened, but you won’t tell me,” she said, crossing her arms. She’d just washed her hair; it cascaded over one shoulder and looked soft and thick.</p><p>“Not this again, Ginny.” Harry slapped the wet towel into the sink. “You know why I can’t tell you.” It was late, he was in considerable pain, and the mission hadn’t even gone according to plan; he was in no mood to argue. Naked, he brushed past her roughly and stalked to the bedroom.</p><p>Ginny followed him.</p><p>“This is the fourth time you’ve come home weeks after you said you would.”</p><p><em>And the fourth time you’ve reminded me, </em>Harry thought. He ground his teeth but did not turn around to face her. “I got home as soon as I could.”</p><p>“No letter, no word, I’m just expected to sit here, waiting, wondering if you’re dead—”</p><p>Harry whipped around, sending a spasm of pain through his ribcage. “<em>You know </em>why I can’t write to you.”</p><p>Ginny’s image in the hallway was fragmented in his broken glasses as if she were trapped in a kaleidoscope. He marched back to the bathroom for his wand, Ginny talking after him all the while.</p><p>“You mean to tell me that Harry Potter, the Boy Who Lived, who defeated Voldemort and cheated death, cannot find <em>some </em>loophole, some secret way of communicating—”</p><p>Harry snatched up his wand. “Are you serious? You’d have me risk the mission, my life, <em>your </em>life—”</p><p>“Some life,” Ginny said darkly. Her face was twisted in bitterness, a shocking contrast to her normal beauty, like an enraged Veela. “Unaccompanied at Quidditch galas, alone on Christmas . . .”</p><p>Harry was losing his patience. Why did she have to bring all this up now? “How many times do I have to apologize for that? I told you what this would be like.” He repaired his glasses with an overly aggressive flick of his wand.</p><p>Ginny scoffed, filling the doorframe, trapping Harry in the bathroom. “So because you’ve put me in my place, I’m just supposed to keep my mouth shut, is that it?”</p><p>“Oh, when have you ever kept your mouth shut,” Harry spat as he shoved his glasses back on, feeling fresh blood dripping on the bathroom floor.</p><p>“I do it more than you realize,” Ginny said in a low voice. “I never . . . I never wanted this life.”</p><p>Ginny seemed prepared to spout awful things at him, things that had been building up since he’d left, to make him hate her.</p><p>“WELL, WHO MADE YOU HAVE IT, THEN?” Harry bellowed. His anger seemed to force more blood through the gash in his temple.</p><p>“Don’t yell at me,” she threatened.</p><p>“I’LL DO WHATEVER I LIKE!”</p><p>“Well that’s plain!” she snarled, her own voice rising. “You go off for as long as you please, doing Merlin knows what, and your wife just sits loyally at home like, like—some <em>dog</em>!”</p><p>“IS THAT WHAT YOU THINK I THINK OF YOU?”</p><p>But she went on like he hadn’t spoken. “—Someone you get to parade around as your wife when it benefits you, someone to abandon when it doesn’t, someone to fuck when you get lonely—”</p><p>Harry grabbed her.</p><p>She slapped him.</p><p>“Don’t touch me!” she screamed when he didn’t release her.</p><p>“YOU WANT ME TO QUIT? IS THAT IT? YOU’RE ALL I CARE ABOUT! I’LL GO TO THE MINISTRY TOMORROW AND QUIT IF THAT’S WHAT YOU WANT!”</p><p>But she merely pierced him with a cold stare, still in his grip, refusing to speak and infuriating Harry further.</p><p>“WHAT DO YOU WANT?” he roared, shaking her.</p><p>Ginny seemed to be rolling words around in her mouth like sour candies. Harry thought he could hear them rattling against her teeth. Then she wrenched herself free of his fists and spat the words out, altering the argument and the universe irrevocably. “I’m pregnant.”</p><p>And as if the secret had been poisonous, as if by speaking she’d leeched herself of some venom, Ginny’s face instantly transformed from hard and livid to soft and contrite.</p><p>There came a great rushing to Harry’s ears as if he were riding very fast on his motorcycle through a long tunnel, and the bathroom began to spin around him.</p><p>Harry stumbled, reaching for Ginny just as she grabbed for him. He clung to her as the world blurred around him. Desperate to anchor himself Harry kissed her, almost violently, his back slamming against the bathroom wall before they both slid to the floor.</p><p>“I didn’t mean all those things,” Ginny breathed into Harry’s neck, his own face buried in her clean hair.</p><p>“I know.”</p><p>“I’m just scared.”</p><p>“Me too.”</p><p>Harry’s fingers dug into Ginny’s white skin; he was afraid to let her go.</p><p>“Are you sure?” he finally whispered.</p><p>He felt her nod against his collarbone.</p><p>“Then I’m quitting—I meant what I said. I don’t care about anything except you.”</p><p>“No, you can’t quit.” She looked up at him, his blood smeared on her face. “I don’t want you to.”</p><p>“I have to!”</p><p>“No, you wouldn’t be saying that if I hadn’t—” Ginny shook her head as if to dismiss their fight as a nightmare. “And in any case, I’ve quit with the Harpies.”</p><p>“You <em>WHAT</em>?”</p><p>“Well, see, it’s actually perfect timing—”</p><p>“You can’t quit!” Harry blurted out, rising unsteadily back onto his feet. He felt quite drunk with shock.</p><p>Ginny stood as well. “Harry, listen—I’ve actually been offered a job at the paper, at the <em>Daily Prophet—</em>”</p><p>“But you love Quidditch,” Harry interrupted once again. His stomach seemed to be doing unpleasant cartwheels, which competed nauseatingly with the spinning still going on in his head. Everything was happening too fast.</p><p>“I know, but I can’t exactly be getting smacked in the gut by Bludgers with this going on,” she said, gesturing to her own stomach, “and the offer is great, Harry, I’d be the Quidditch correspondent! I’ll still get to travel and see all the games, just from a much safer vantage point.”</p><p>“But is that—please don’t do this because of me,” Harry said hoarsely, his voice breaking. He wished he could rewind time and reenter the house all over again. Bloody and ruined and undeserving he’d crawl into bed with Ginny and hold her until the sun woke them.</p><p>“I’m doing it for <em>us,</em> Harry,” Ginny said, taking him by the sides and making him wince in pain he’d forgotten about.</p><p>“Promise me you’ll go back to the Harpies, after.”</p><p>“I will if I want to,” Ginny said wryly, a grin finally sliding back on to her face.</p><p>It seemed decided, at least on Ginny’s part, and Harry was too weak to argue tonight. He closed his eyes, willing the room to stop spinning.</p><p>Finally, Ginny seemed to notice the full extent of Harry’s injuries. She fingered the quickly purpling bruises on Harry’s ribs and the deep gash along his temple.</p><p>Something dark passed across Ginny’s face as she looked up at him.</p><p>“It kills me,” she mouthed, in barely a whisper, “not to know how you got this way. Who did this to you. What you endured.”</p><p>Harry opened his eyes and placed a dry, weary kiss on her forehead.</p><p>“Come on into the kitchen,” said Ginny, recovering herself and guiding Harry business-like into the hallway. “I think I have a poultice in the cupboard that’ll help with your ribs. . . .”</p><p> </p><p> </p><p>It’s so quiet,” Ginny said, looking up and down the dark street through the translucent Invisibility Cloak.</p><p>“It always was.” They walked past the line of identical houses with perfectly mown grass and carefully manicured gardens. The cool spring air nibbled gently at exposed ankles and necks. The neighborhood would seem idyllic if the viewer didn’t know each house was silently and vehemently competing with the next house to have the best lawn. And that their inhabitants gossiped viciously about each other behind the closed shutters.</p><p>They finally found themselves in front of Number Four, where a faded “For Sale” sign was stuck in the pristine grass.</p><p>“It’s empty?” Ginny asked.</p><p>“They relocated before Voldemort was defeated. I guess they never came back.”</p><p>“You haven’t spoken to them since?”</p><p>Harry shook his head.</p><p>Before Harry could stop her, Ginny emerged from the cloak, clutching her growing belly, and stepped into the yard. She peered through the front window that Harry knew looked into the living room, then moved to the front door and tried the lock.</p><p>“Ginny, what the hell are you doing?” Harry hissed from the street.</p><p>“No one’s home,” Ginny said, taking out her wand.</p><p>Harry looked frantically to the houses on either side and to the house across the sleepy street, but the only light came from a dim streetlight a few yards away. They weren’t likely to be spotted.</p><p>Ginny had evidently performed <em>Alohomora </em>on the realtor’s padlock on the front door, because next second she was easing her way into the dark house.</p><p>Not wanting to linger in the street, Harry followed her quickly inside.</p><p>Removing the cloak, Harry looked around. It was identical to how he had remembered it, except that it was completely empty of any of the Dursleys’ personal effects. The same floral wallpaper plastered the walls, and by the stairs there were dark squares on the wall once taken up by the giant collage of photos of the Dursley family, of too many portraits of Dudley and none of Harry.</p><p>Ginny walked into the dark living room where the fireplace sat, where Harry had learned Dudley was going to Smeltings and where Harry was instructed to pretend he didn’t exist. And there, through the kitchen where Ginny now walked, was the spot where Harry had been forced to listen to Aunt Marge call his mum a bitch and his father a drunk.</p><p>Harry looked back at the mail slot on the front door, where his first Hogwarts letter had come.</p><p>Ginny crept back into the foyer where Harry stood, and then she spotted it. The cupboard under the stairs. She looked back tentatively over her shoulder at Harry before approaching the small door.</p><p>She slid the latch aside, the sound echoing hollowly throughout the vacant house. Time seemed to reverse and Harry suddenly felt very small.</p><p>Ginny slowly pulled the door open and crouched, entering the cupboard. Harry didn’t follow. She pulled the chain attached to the dim lightbulb, and Harry knew she was looking at the three shallow shelves along the left wall where Harry had kept his precious few belongings, to the small floorspace where he’d slept, unable to stretch out fully, and likely to the cobwebs in the top corners that had once been spiderwebs Harry had carefully memorized.</p><p>He wasn’t sure how long Ginny stayed in the cupboard, but eventually she came out, and turned off the light. She latched the door closed, and Harry’s throat got stuck at the painfully familiar metallic click it made, the sound he’d heard thousands of times that meant Uncle Vernon had locked him in, usually without supper.</p><p>He’d forgotten about that sound.</p><p>She looked up at him then, and Harry saw she was crying.</p><p>“<em>Oh, Harry</em>.”</p><p>“It’s fine,” he said gruffly.</p><p>“No, it’s not.”</p><p>Harry tried swallowing. “It was years ago. I’ve forgiven them,” he lied.</p><p>“Well, I haven’t.” She approached him with glassy eyes, but as always, they were still fiery, determined. “I <em>knew</em>, of course, you’d told me. But there’s a difference, actually seeing it. . . .”</p><p>“I shouldn’t have brought you here,” Harry said.</p><p>“<em>No</em>.” Ginny took hold of his forearms. “I’m glad you did.”</p><p>“Why?”</p><p>“So I can understand. See what you’ve been through.”</p><p>Harry was having trouble speaking. “Please don’t feel sorry for me.”</p><p>Still holding his arms, Ginny’s eyes bored into him, and she almost seemed angry. “I want to know everything about you, Harry, even the parts you don’t think you can show me.” She shook him, because he was avoiding her gaze. He looked down at her. “Please,” she whispered. “Let me help you carry this.”</p><p>Harry felt a swell of gratitude for Ginny. He leaned his forehead against hers and let his tears roll down his face. Ginny pulled him closer and they held each other in the dark foyer, as the fading ghosts of a faraway past roamed among them.</p>
  </div></div>
<a name="section0014"><h2>14. Reckoning</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Summary for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
            <p>Harry takes his family to visit Dudley Dursley. During the visit, he has an unexpected reunion with another long lost family member.</p>
          </blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p><em>"D</em><em>ad!</em> Dad, look!”</p><p>Harry had just settled by the fire in the living room of the Burrow, sipping a Butterbeer. James skittered into view from the hallway holding something in his hand. Rose, Albus, Lily, and Hugo were right behind him.</p><p>“What’s up?”</p><p>“Have you seen this?!” James dumped three Chocolate Frogs packages, already opened, into Harry’s lap.</p><p>“Careful, it’s probably a trick,” Ginny warned from the couch without looking up from the article she was writing. “He farted in my sock drawer yesterday and hid in the closet until I opened it.”</p><p>“Look inside!” James urged.</p><p>Deciding to risk it, Harry reached inside the first box, pulled out the Chocolate Frog card, and saw—himself. He blinked, but a miniature version of himself still stared up at him, smiling. Harry flipped it over and read the text on the other side.</p><p>
  <b> <em>HARRY POTTER</em> </b>
</p><p>
  <em>Known popularly as The Boy Who Lived, Harry Potter is famous for being the only known survivor of the Killing Curse and for defeating the Dark wizard Lord Voldemort in 1998. Mr. Potter is also the youngest Quidditch Seeker in over a century.</em>
</p><p>It wasn’t the first time Harry had been surprised to find himself immortalized in print, but this time he was deeply pleased. Eating Chocolate Frogs had been one of his first experiences in the Wizarding world, when he and Ron had just met on the Hogwarts Express.</p><p>“Look at all of them!” squeaked Rose. Ron peered curiously over his game of chess with Hermione.</p><p>Harry pulled out the second card and read:</p><p>
  <b> <em>HERMIONE GRANGER</em> </b>
</p><p>
  <em>Considered by many to be the brightest witch of her age, Hermione Granger played a crucial role in the defeat of the Dark wizard Lord Voldemort alongside her colleague, Harry Potter. Miss Granger enjoys knitting and is a fierce magical creatures’ rights advocate.</em>
</p><p>“Hey, Hermione, you’re famous,” Harry chuckled, passing the card to her. He then opened the third package and saw a miniature Ron smiling up at him.</p><p>
  <b> <em>RONALD WEASLEY</em> </b>
</p><p>
  <em>The youngest of six brothers, Ronald Weasley played a crucial role in the defeat of the Dark wizard Lord Voldemort alongside his colleague, Harry Potter. Mr. Weasley is an avid Chudley Cannons Quidditch fan and is accomplished in Wizard’s Chess.</em>
</p><p>Ron took his card gingerly and read it. Everyone watched him in silence as his face traversed a breadth of emotion from incredulity to utter joy. He finally looked up at everyone.</p><p>“Y’know,” he said, “I think this is my finest hour.”</p><p> </p><p> </p><p>The woods were thick and muggy—brambles and thorns tore at Harry’s skin as he ran deeper into the trees, but he could not feel them. He didn’t know where he was going, but it seemed very urgent that he get there quickly. His feet were suddenly heavy, clumsy; he wasn’t going to make it. Heart racing, sweat breaking out on his forehead, Harry sprinted as fast as he could with lead feet for what felt like years. He was utterly exhausted but refused to stop.</p><p>Finally, the trees broke into a clearing and Harry stopped dead. There <em>he </em>stood, across the open space, snakelike and red eyes illuminated by the full moon. He smiled, revealing a mouth full of sharp fangs. Hundreds of cloaked men and women stood behind him, a wall of blackness, pressing down on Harry.</p><p>His red eyes flicked down to the small figure he held in his arms, her hair spilling out like copper water. A pale arm hung limply, unmoving.</p><p>Harry was too late.</p><p>The cloaked crowd laughed.</p><p>Fangs glistening, he cackled and threw the body at his feet like a sack of flour. The crowd cheered as the red-eyed monster unhinged his jaw and a great snake burst forth from his mouth, feet and feet of it, slimy and slick as if its master had no intestines, but miles of snakes writhing inside him.</p><p>The snake slid forward and Harry dove for the body, but his feet were rooted to the spot.</p><p>“<em>NO!”</em></p><p>Harry broke his legs so he could fall forward, to grasp a fistful of red hair before she was eaten whole before his eyes.</p><p>Harry screamed.</p><p>Hands were on him, shaking him, pulling him away.</p><p>
  <em>“NO! LEAVE ME! I WANT TO DIE!”</em>
</p><p>“Harry!”</p><p>He yelled and shoved against the hands madly as his heart tore itself free from his chest, sharp claws ripping at his flesh, leaving him bloody—</p><p>“HARRY!”</p><p>He blinked and the dark room came together around him. There was his half-eaten piece of leftover kidney pie he’d taken to bed. And his jeans thrown across the chair in the corner. And small, cool hands on his face. . .</p><p>He collapsed into her, shaking violently, and she held him to her breast. Harry inhaled the smell of warm cotton and wildflowers and tried to banish the images seared into his mind. The puncture scars on his arm where Nagini had bitten him all those years ago seemed to burn with fresh venom. He knew he was hurting her, crushing her in his arms and digging his fingernails into her shoulder, her back, but he couldn’t let go. Not yet.</p><p>She stroked his sweaty hair.</p><p>“It’s not real.”</p><p>It’s what she always whispered, what Harry knew she’d have to remind him for the rest of his life.</p><p>And like always, Harry knew of only one cure, one way to be sure she was here with him. She seemed to read his thoughts and pulled him on top of her.</p><p>There was no affection, no sweetness, and no thrilling frenzy. They moved out of simple need, as automatically as two lungs desperately pulling in air after almost drowning. And they breathed each other’s bodies together, deeply, slowly, until they were full again.</p><p> </p><p> </p><p>It was a frosty day in early spring when Harry received the most unlikely letter by owl. The envelope was addressed to a Mr. Harry Potter, Somewhere Hopefully Still in Great Britain. It was carried through his bedroom window by a thoroughly beleaguered-looking great gray owl, feathers pointing every which way as if it had undergone a terribly arduous journey. Harry noticed a plastic orange bracelet on one of its legs as it fluttered to a glass of water on Harry’s nightstand and dove its beak within. Curious, Harry opened the letter.</p><p>
  <em>Dear Harry,</em>
</p><p>
  <em> I feel bloody stupid writing this, expecting it to somehow get to you. I don’t even have your address. But I remember you always had an owl and that’s how your lot sent messages. Don’t ask me how I got hold of one. It wasn’t easy and definitely illegal.</em>
</p><p>
  <em> Anyway, I’ve been thinking about trying to get in touch with you for a while now. I don’t even know if you’re alive, now that I think about it. I hope you are. And I hope this reaches you.</em>
</p><p>
  <em> Dad died. Your uncle, that is. Myocardial infarction. I’ve heard that so many times over the past weeks, they say it more than Dad’s name. It’s like he died and turned into a myocardial infarction. “How’s the myocardial infarction patient?” Myocardial infarction, myocardial infarction. He was hooked up to machines for a few days after, but the docs said he wouldn’t recover. Mum and I decided to let him go.</em>
</p><p>
  <em> Thought you’d like to know. I know you weren’t fond of each other. But it felt weird not to tell you if I could. Mum’s pretty frail now. I think the shock of it did her in. And you know I don’t have siblings. I guess I just needed to tell someone who was there for it all.</em>
</p><p>
  <em> So now you know. I don’t expect you to do anything. We already had the funeral—it all happened so fast. He’s buried in the Little Whinging Cemetery. We already bought a plot for the whole family. Morbid, eh? Mum cries all the time and says she wants to go soon.</em>
</p><p>
  <em> I feel like I’m talking to a ghost. It was a million years ago when we last spoke. I have a family now, kids, a house. Don’t know when that happened. If you get this, if you’re alive, and if you don’t hate me—and I’d understand if you did—I live at 19 Rhododendron Drive, Reading. Come visit if you’re ever in the neighborhood.</em>
</p><p>
  <em> Best,</em>
</p><p>Dudley Dursley</p><p>Harry lowered the letter, trying to feel something for his dead Uncle Vernon. But all he felt was the sense that a long-unread, dusty book from his past had finally closed.</p><p>But Dudley had reached out. He’d figured out a way to contact him, apparently stealing an owl from a zoo, a place he vowed he’d never visit again after (Harry grinned) being set upon by a python in a zoo as a child.</p><p>Harry remembered the last time he’d seen Dudley, and they’d shaken hands after Dudley had admitted he didn’t in fact think Harry was a waste of space. Perhaps he wasn’t so like his father after all.</p><p>“You’re going to visit him, aren’t you?” said Ginny when Harry showed her the letter over breakfast.</p><p>“Visit who?” asked James.</p><p>“I don’t know that he meant it as a real invitation,” muttered Harry, pulling apart a biscuit for Lily.</p><p>“Of course he did,” said Ginny. “He put his address in there, didn’t he?”</p><p>“Who?” asked Albus through a mouthful of bacon.</p><p>“I don’t think he wants an entire family of wizards in his living room any more than his father did.”</p><p>“<em>Who?” </em>pressed James, who had begun to hover off his seat in his eagerness.</p><p>“You said yourself he was kind to you in the end,” said Ginny, pushing James back into his chair without even looking at him, making Albus laugh.</p><p>“Yeah, in the end. But there were many not-so-kind years before that.”</p><p>“He said he has kids, Harry. They’d be their cousins.” Ginny snapped her fingers at Albus, who was now trying to poke James with his fork.</p><p>“Distant cousins,” mumbled Harry as he wiped crumbs off Lily’s chubby face.</p><p>James squirmed away from Albus’s weapon. “We already have cousins,” he said.</p><p>“See?” said Harry. “They already have cousins.”</p><p>“We have <em>a lot </em>of cousins. And Teddy,” corrected Albus, now trying to covertly stab James in the leg under the table.</p><p>“What’s the harm, Harry?” asked Ginny.</p><p>“OW!”</p><p>Quick as a flash, Ginny had whipped out her wand and Summoned Albus’s fork into her hand.</p><p>“How will I eat my eggs?” moaned Albus.</p><p>“You should have thought about that before you tried to shish kabob your brother!”</p><p>Harry was reminded so forcibly of Mrs. Weasley that he had to stifle a laugh, which got Albus and James giggling.</p><p>Lily, wanting to join in on the fun, shrieked with glee and slammed her fist on the table of her high chair, launching her cup of milk right into Harry’s face. The boys pealed with laughter.</p><p>Lily screamed with pure joy as Harry, still grinning, removed his glasses and wiped his face with his napkin.</p><p>“NO, PUT THAT DOWN!” Ginny yelled, for James had picked up his own cup of orange juice and was threatening to up-end it over Albus’s head, whose laughter had switched in an instant to deafening screams of terror.</p><p>“James,” said Harry as he wiped his glasses on his shirt, his voice a calming boom beneath the noise. “If you do that you can’t meet your Muggle cousins.”</p><p>James’s eyes grew bigger than his breakfast plate and he set his juice down immediately. Ginny Summoned the cup toward her for good measure.</p><p>“We have Muggle cousins?” asked Albus.</p><p>Harry nodded. “Remember I told you your grandmother, my mother, was Muggle-born?”</p><p>“They’re real Muggles?” asked James, eyes locked on his father. “Like they might have the new Playstation?”</p><p>Harry had kept the Muggle contraptions of his early years at Claret Rockcottage in the house, so his kids had grown up with a television, video games, and a telephone. Harry had thought it important for Muggle life, so familiar to him, to not be so alien to his children. James in particular had shown a keen interest in these technologies, and his greatest joy was to play games on the family’s now ancient Playstation console.</p><p>Harry laughed again. “Well, I don’t know what they’ll have, but knowing Dudley . . . probably.”</p><p>And so it was that Harry wrote back with the same disgruntled owl, and they planned a visit in a week’s time. The following Saturday, the five Potters drove three hours to Reading (Harry having borrowed Ron’s Mustang) and pulled up in front of a terraced brick house with a cozy bay window in the front.</p><p>A burly man with dirty blonde hair wearing a smart turtleneck sweater appeared through the front door and Harry thought perhaps they’d gotten the wrong house. But the man waved, and Harry squinted from across the street as Ginny extracted Lily from the car. The man bore no resemblance to the Dudley Harry had known, but it must be him. Just about a hundred pounds lighter.</p><p>The five of them crossed the street.</p><p>“Wow,” said Dudley as he took Harry in, stopping Harry from saying the exact same thing. For it was certainly Dudley in the eyes, but the similarities to the teenage Dudley stopped there.</p><p>“Long time no see,” said Harry, shaking his hand.</p><p>“I s’pose I look a bit different to you, eh? Lost the weight a few years ago. Dad’s health problems scared me straight, I guess.”</p><p>Harry nodded awkwardly. He supposed he ought to say something bracing about Uncle Vernon’s passing, but he couldn’t think of a single thing to say.</p><p>Luckily, James decided to be known at that moment.</p><p>“Do you have the new Playstation?” he asked, breaking out from behind his mother’s legs.</p><p>“James—” started Harry.</p><p>But Dudley laughed.</p><p>“We do, actually. Why don’t you go on in—Vance is already playing.”</p><p>Needing no further instruction, James disappeared inside.</p><p>“Sorry,” said Harry.</p><p>“Not at all.”</p><p>“This is my wife, Ginny,” said Harry.</p><p>“Pleased to meet you.” Ginny shook hands and smiled at Dudley, who blinked a couple times, clearly dazzled, before smiling shyly at her.</p><p>“And this is Albus and Lily.” Albus nodded up at Dudley, but Lily hid behind Harry’s pant leg. “Albus, this is—well, let’s say your uncle Dudley.”</p><p>Dudley smiled awkwardly down at Albus before seeming to realize they were all still huddled on his front porch.</p><p>“Oh—please, come in—”</p><p>Dudley led them into a small, well-decorated living room, where a young blonde boy about Albus’s age in a basketball jersey was noisily wrestling a controller away from James.</p><p>“Vance, stop it, no, no!” quivered Dudley, waving his hands ineffectually at his son, who ignored him. Harry glowered sternly at James, who relinquished the controller at once.</p><p>“That’s better,” said Dudley. “Brandy?” He ducked into the kitchen and fetched a bottle and three glasses.</p><p>“Thank you,” said Harry, grateful for something to do with his hands; this was stranger than he thought it’d be.</p><p>Ginny took a glass as well and they all sat in painful silence, taking up the couch and an armchair. A piano sat in the far corner, and Harry wondered who in the family played.</p><p>Dudley gave a start in his armchair by the fireplace. “That’s my wife, Gretchen,” he said quickly, pointing to a large portrait of the family over the fireplace, where a pleasant-looking, buxom young woman with very short brown hair stood next to Dudley.</p><p>“She isn’t here?” asked Ginny.</p><p>“She . . . doesn’t know,” Dudley said shiftily. “About . . .”</p><p>Harry and Ginny shared a look and Harry nodded at Dudley before they plunged back into silence.</p><p>For a while, there was only the sound of Lily’s small noises in her father’s lap and of the clicking of Vance’s controller as he played, James scowling next to him on the floor.</p><p>“Um—would you like to play too, Albus, was it?” asked Dudley, gesturing to the television. “Vance, get off so Albus can play—”</p><p>“That’s okay,” said Albus, scrunched between his parents on the couch. Harry knew he was shier than his brother and was shrewd enough to realize that there was very little chance of James’ <em>and </em>his being able to play even five minutes on Vance’s console.</p><p>There was silence again.</p><p>“You have a daughter?” asked Ginny after a moment, looking again at the family portrait over the fireplace. Along with Dudley, his wife, and his son Vance,the frame contained a slightly older girl about James’s age, with blonde hair braided into pigtails, tied with bows.</p><p>“Yes,” said Dudley. “She’s out shopping with her mother.”</p><p>Harry had an idiotic, split-second thought that the girl had been locked away, forgotten, in a cupboard somewhere in the house. But as quickly as the thought came he dismissed it; Dudley wouldn’t have said she was their daughter, or else displayed her photo over the mantel, if they were pretending she didn’t exist.</p><p>“Her name’s Rebecca,” said Dudley with resolution, as if her name explained things more fully.</p><p>Once again, Harry nodded.</p><p>Lily began tugging on Harry’s shirt, and reacting upon instinct, Ginny produced her wand and drew up a cup of milk out of thin air.</p><p>Dudley gasped and shot a look at Vance.</p><p>“Oh—” said Ginny, staring wide-eyed between Dudley and Vance. She still held the small cup, and Lily was reaching for it with both of her tiny hands. “I’m sorry—”</p><p>“It’s all right,” muttered Dudley, but he looked rather breathless. “He didn’t see.”</p><p>Lily had begun to cry, and Ginny handed the cup to her, glancing back apologetically at Dudley, who was still a bit white-faced.</p><p>“I apologize,” he said. “It’s not that—it’s just, I don’t know how to explain . . .”</p><p>“We understand,” said Harry.</p><p>Harry indeed understood Dudley’s apprehension around magic; his few brushes with it had not ended well. In addition to the python incident, Harry still remembered very clearly when a bright pink and curly pig’s tail had sprouted from the seat of Dudley’s pajamas, and when his tongue had grown ten times its size thanks to some jinxed candy courtesy of Fred and George. Harry thought just then it might not be the best idea to tell his cousin that his wife was the sister of those very twins.</p><p>“So you’re—you’re m-magical too?” asked Dudley at an attempt at casualness, as if inquiring whether Ginny was a Wessex League football fan.</p><p>Ginny smiled, stowing her wand.</p><p>“How do you do it?” Dudley whispered suddenly, as if it had come out before he could stop it.</p><p>“Well, we’re taught to,” said Ginny, glancing at Harry. “That’s where Harry and I met—at Hogwarts. Well, at the train station, to be specific—”</p><p>“Have you always known you were . . . magic?” Harry noted Dudley’s struggle to say the “m” word, so long banished in their childhood home. Yet he managed it where his father had not.</p><p>“I was the youngest in a long line of witches and wizards, so it was pretty much a guarantee. Although you get your Squibs every now and then,” added Ginny. Dudley nodded politely, though he seemed thoroughly befuddled.</p><p>“Most children display signs at a young age,” said Ginny. “This one”—she pointed to James, thoroughly entranced in Vance’s game—“has begun hovering all over the place. Hit his head after he floated right out of bed the other night.”</p><p>“And Albus set his peas on fire at dinner one night,” said Harry.</p><p>“Strange things always happened around you, I remember,” said Dudley, studying Harry. “You could jump clean onto school buildings.”</p><p>“Wicked, Dad,” said Albus at Harry’s elbow. Harry winked at him.</p><p>“Will Vancey ever . . . ?” asked Dudley gravely, eyeing his son with a newfound fear, likely wondering whether he would one day exhibit similar funny business, setting dinner aflame or else making the television explode.</p><p>“Probably not. He’d receive a letter by eleven, though, if he were a wizard,” explained Ginny.</p><p>A shadow passed over Dudley’s face as he seemed to recall the memory of Uncle Vernon dragging the family away on a remote island to avoid Harry’s Hogwarts letters, before a giant broke down their door in the dead of night.</p><p>"There are a good number of Muggle-borns, though,” continued Ginny conversationally. “Our friend Hermione Granger was the best student at the school.”</p><p>“Muggle—?” started Dudley. “I’ve heard that before.”</p><p>“Non-magical people,” said Harry.</p><p>“Sounds like a dirty word,” muttered Dudley.</p><p>“To some it is,” added Harry darkly.</p><p>“Like that Voldymort fellow,” said Dudley, remembering. “What happened to him, anyway?”</p><p>“Harry defeated him,” said Ginny, sitting up a bit straighter on the couch. Albus grinned up at his father. “He’s rather famous for it, actually, in our world.”</p><p>“How on earth did you do that?” asked Dudley, eyes wide.</p><p>“It’s a long story,” said Harry with finality.</p><p>“He hasn’t told me either,” Albus grumbled to Dudley. “Don’t feel bad.”</p><p>They all laughed a bit before settling back into more silence.</p><p>“Can I use the bathroom?” asked Albus after a time.</p><p>“Of course,” said Dudley, standing up quickly. “Upstairs, second door on the left.”</p><p>Albus went upstairs, and Harry, Ginny, and Dudley sat in silence once more.</p><p>The minutes dragged on, and Harry desperately wracked his brain for a pleasant memory he and Dudley had shared, but all he could think of was being hunted by Dudley and his cronies at school, having his head shoved into the toilet, being chased up a tree by Aunt Marge’s bulldogs and Dudley laughing at him. Finally he remembered the time Dudley had nearly had his soul sucked out by a pair of dementors—a memory he was certain Dudley was not keen to revisit.</p><p>“Oh,” said Ginny excitedly, evidently also digging for polite conversation. “You’ve met my dad, when he came to get Harry for the Triwizard Tournament? He and my brothers came—”</p><p>Harry shook his head.</p><p>“No, I remember they did, because I wanted to come and they wouldn’t let me.” She looked back at Dudley. “My twin brothers? Fred and George?”</p><p>It slowly dawned on Dudley, who had taken in Ginny’s red hair anew and was suddenly horrorstruck at the memory of almost choking to death on his own tongue.</p><p>“That was your family?” he breathed.</p><p>“I’m going to go check on Albus,” said Harry, unable to sit in the room any longer. He tried to quickly pass Lily to Ginny, but the baby protested, clinging once again to Harry’s shirt.</p><p>He went upstairs still carrying Lily, as Ginny began backpedaling with Dudley, saying perhaps she’d been confused, and Harry found the bathroom to be dark and empty.</p><p>“Albus?”</p><p>Quiet voices echoed from a room at the end of the hall. Harry crept further down, and saw light pouring out from around the closed door. He pressed his ear against the door and heard Albus talking to someone.</p><p>He eased the door open and found Albus deep in conversation with the young girl in the frame, Rebecca. They knelt next to a bed, where a frail older woman with white hair lay sleeping.</p><p>“Albus, what are you doing?”</p><p>“This is Rebecca,” said Albus.</p><p>“Nice to meet you, Rebecca. Come on, Albus, back downstairs—”</p><p>“But I'm meeting my cousin!”</p><p>“Who are you?” asked the girl.</p><p>“I’m Harry, Albus’s father.”</p><p>“This is my grandmother. Her name is Petunia.”</p><p>Harry looked back at the woman in the bed, aged decades beyond what he knew her age to be. And as if upon hearing her name, Aunt Petunia’s small, pale eyes opened and instantly met Harry’s.</p><p>She seemed afraid at first, as if she were peering at a ghost.</p><p>“You,” she whispered. The girl named Rebecca froze where she kneeled, as if amazed her grandmother had spoken.</p><p>“I’m sorry,” said Harry, feeling inexplicably ashamed all of a sudden. He looked away and took Albus’s arm. “We were just leaving.”</p><p>Aunt Petunia gasped.</p><p>“Lily.” Her voice was feeble.</p><p>Harry looked back, holding his daughter in one arm, and his son’s fist with his other hand. Aunt Petunia’s eyes were locked on Lily, who was staring back inquisitively, having heard her favorite word: her own name.</p><p>Tears brimmed in Aunt Petunia’s eyes as she took in Lily’s red hair and hazel eyes shining behind glasses. “Sister.”</p><p>Lily cooed.</p><p>“This is my daughter, Aunt Petunia,” corrected Harry. “But her name is Lily.”</p><p>Aunt Petunia closed her eyes and a sheen of supreme sadness eclipsed her face. “I should have . . . she’ll never forgive . . .”</p><p>Harry could guess what she meant. He thought of his mother, smiling at him through mirrors and photographs, known to him only as the stuff of vapor and dreams. “She forgives you,” he whispered, but he wasn’t sure that she’d heard him; her dozing face had contracted just then as if in pain. Harry looked at his daughter, who was still taking in the figure on the bed with keen interest, her eyes bright and curious. He gazed back down at his aunt and spoke before he’d even thought the words. “And I forgive you.”</p><p>A moment later, a single tear escaped her closed eyes.</p><p>“Come on, Albus. Let’s go.”</p><p>On the dark stairs, Albus pulled against Harry’s grip.</p><p>“Dad—who was that? How did she know Lily?”</p><p>Harry could barely see his son’s face, so much like his own, in the shadows. “Someone from my past. Come on.”</p><p>“Why won’t you ever tell me anything?” Albus hissed, still pulling against Harry, remaining on the staircase out of earshot of the people above and below them. Harry descended a few stairs but Albus pressed on.</p><p>“Who is she? Why have I never met my cousin before now? Why won’t you even tell me about Voldemort? Rose told me you killed him when you were a baby, then you brought him back to life when you were at Hogwarts, then you killed him again—how did you do that? Why did you do that? Huh?”</p><p>Albus’s voice grew thick in the darkness as he fought back tears. Harry stood frozen on the stairs below.</p><p>“People love you and I don’t even know how come. I know you have bad dreams, I hear you. You don’t think we can hear you, but we do. Who’s Cedric, Dad? Tell me! Why did it have to be you to beat Voldemort? Why? Why won’t you talk to any of us? Why won’t you talk to me, Dad?”</p><p>A memory came to Harry, of himself, lying in a hospital bed as a tall wizard with a long-white beard peered bemusedly down at him through half-moon spectacles. Harry had asked too many questions then, about the Sorcerer’s Stone, about the Prophecy—though he didn’t know he was encroaching upon that topic then—about his fate. And Dumbledore had answered what he could, and left the rest to be dealt with in due time. Harry had been supremely frustrated by his evasiveness, the infuriating twinkle in his eye as the man held back all the answers with a simple smile. And yet here Harry stood, in the unlikeliest of places, in a Muggle town on the darkened staircase of his long-lost cousin, staring down at his second son, who glared up at him with a hauntingly familiar expression. And not for the first time, Harry had a newfound appreciation for that son’s namesake.</p><p>Harry sighed, and released Albus’s hand to hold his wet face, Lily stirring in his other arm. “I’ll tell you one day.” Albus opened his mouth to protest and Harry cut across him, smiling despite himself. “I know you hate that answer, but I promise, when you’re older, when you’re ready . . . I’ll sit you down, and I’ll tell you the whole story.”</p><p> </p><p> </p><p>The kitchen had never seemed so silent, so empty. Harry remembered distantly a time when he’d lived in the cottage alone, but even then the kitchen had been alive with the smell of burning eggs, the sounds of sizzling steaks, rushing hot water, and clattering pots and pans as he learned how to cook.</p><p>Harry made himself another cup of coffee, not sure if he enjoyed the quiet.</p><p>He and Ginny had just seen James, Albus, and Lily off at King’s Cross. It was Lily’s first year at Hogwarts and she’d been so excited to finally follow her brothers onto the train.</p><p>Ginny padded down the stairs, joining Harry in the kitchen, and peered absently through the kitchen window. They both stood in the stillness, Harry in wonderment suddenly at the realization that this occasion was distinctly one of a future he’d always imagined as forever away. Time had never seemed a steady, predictable thing to him.</p><p>After several wordless minutes, Ginny turned to Harry and crossed the kitchen toward him, allowing him to pull her into an embrace.</p><p>Harry drew her onto the counter and slipped off her clothes, determined to make time slow, to wait and slumber, if only for this moment.</p><p>And for once, it did.</p><p> </p><p> </p><p>
  <em>Epilogue</em>
</p><p>On the outskirts of Bristol, where signs of bustling city nightlife quickly give way to dark, abandoned industrial parks, rusted-out storage units, and long forgotten auto parts warehouses, a woman had just realized she was lost. She’d left the nightclub almost thirty minutes ago and had decided to walk home in a huff. Her boyfriend had finally broken things off with her and she’d stormed out, hoping he’d come after her.</p><p>But he never had.</p><p>She hadn’t intended to go far from the club, but somehow she’d made a wrong turn and now nothing looked familiar. Cars honked distantly and shadows played with her eyes. She was navigating streets she’d never stepped foot on before, and her head was foggy—she cursed that last tequila shot. Fumbling in her tiny purse, she withdrew her phone and slid it unlocked to call a rideshare.</p><p>Shit. No signal.</p><p>She took a right at random, away from the taller buildings, hoping to see the bars rise in the upper-left of the screen.</p><p>Suddenly, a loud <em>crack! </em>like a whip echoed somewhere nearby. A car backfiring? Forcing herself not to panic, she decided to follow one street until she passed a cross-street she recognized.</p><p>But after only a single block, a great sense of foreboding came upon her, sending creeping, crawling goosebumps up her neck; she had the feeling that someone was following her.</p><p>This wasn’t the first time in her life; she reached for the pepper spray in her purse.</p><p>She’d read somewhere that if you caught the guy’s eye, if he realized he’d been seen clearly, he’d leave you alone. She looked over her shoulder, and her heart stopped—no less than five men were walking in the middle of the deserted street about twenty yards back.</p><p>Yet they were no ordinary-looking men. The one in front was strange, a great hulking man, and they all wore long black cloaks despite the warm summer air. The fabric billowed behind them as they stalked her, and they each seemed to be carrying sticks or—she shuddered—perhaps guns.</p><p>Speeding up past an abandoned car park, the woman saw a street name she recognized; she hadn’t drifted so far after all. But to her horror, the heavy footfalls of the men behind her sped up too. She clicked her phone again with trembling fingers and saw she mercifully had one bar. Unlocking her phone as she hurried under a streetlight, she looked back, hoping to get a good look at the men—and she gasped.</p><p>They had surrounded her in the seconds she’d looked away. Flooded in orange light, the massive man leered at her with an abhorrent face. He seemed more wolf than man, with grizzled hair, cruel, deep-set eyes, and, most wickedly, a mouthful of sharp fangs. She was mesmerized just as she was terrified.</p><p>She brandished her pepper spray. “Don’t come any closer!” she shrieked, pointing it at each of the five men in turn. “The police are on their way!”</p><p>The massive, wolf-like man—or whatever he was—raised his arm, the one holding what she could see now was some sort of baton. Was he going to beat her?</p><p>“You smell like dessert to me, missy,” growled the wolf-like man, and his henchmen rumbled with laughter as they closed in, blocking off her escape.</p><p>Two of his henchmen grabbed her arms and pushed her up against the concrete wall, and she was too petrified to fight back, to scream—he grabbed her throat—</p><p>Another loud <em>crack!</em>—the woman finally screamed, thinking she’d been shot.</p><p>But suddenly the leader was struck by an invisible blow that exploded in red sparks as he fell forward. The other four men and the woman looked around wildly and she saw on the other end of the street another man emerge from the shadows and march purposely toward them.</p><p>He too wore a long black cloak and carried a baton of sorts, but as he came into view he was no monster. Yet he was still strange—he had long, messy hair, a dark five o’clock shadow, oddly old-fashioned glasses, and, somehow most startling of all, bright green eyes.</p><p>“It’s him!” cried one of the men, and they all half-twisted on the spot like a bizarre quartet of grotesque ballerinas, but the green-eyed man raised his stick and a volley of rapid-fire red sparks knocked each man down.</p><p>The wolf-like man got to his feet and slashed his stick; a sudden whip of fire shot at the green-eyed man. He flicked his own stick like a conductor; an odd translucent shield appeared before him, colliding with the sudden flames. The other men brandished their own sticks, assailing the green-eyed man with their own horrors.</p><p>The woman crouched behind a fire hydrant as the men engaged each other in the most extraordinary combat she’d ever seen—</p><p>They brandished their sticks at each other like swords with rapid-fire speed, lunging and parrying, as orange sparks and purple flames and gale force winds shot from the sticks as if by magic. Missed blows exploded against concrete, blasting large craters all around them. The wolf-like man and his followers shouted nonsensical words between pants and grunts, while their quarry, despite the numbers against him, brandished his stick silently and almost lazily, as though this was rather an average evening for him.</p><p>Something hit a nearby parked car and all its glass shattered—the wolf-like man levitated the shards before her very eyes and shot them at the green-eyed man like bullets.</p><p><em>“Look out!”</em> cried the woman ineffectually, but the green-eyed man dodged them easily and sent them sailing back to the group like one large missile.</p><p>Somehow regaining her senses amid this spectacle, the woman snatched her phone to dial 999, but the screen was going haywire, glitching out into pixels. At that exact moment, the fire hydrant she was hiding behind exploded.</p><p>She screamed but was rooted to the spot in terror as a torrent of water crashed down upon her. She hunkered helplessly, covering her drenched head, getting only confused glimpses of what was happening. The wolf-like man had somehow transformed the husk of the car into a mechanical stampeding bull, which charged at the green-eyed man. With a flick of his stick, the beast exploded into fireworks and the shrapnel turned into an angry flock of metallic owls that rained down with fury. As the men screamed and swatted at the owls in vain, the green-eyed man picked off his opponents one by one, sending their batons sailing through the air as the men fell, rigid and immobilized.</p><p>Within seconds, the wolf-like man was the final opponent. The loss of his followers seemed to devolve the man into his true form; his face was suddenly savage and nightmarish as he bared his teeth, eyes flashing in the streetlights. He howled like a wild beast and charged the man at full speed.</p><p>The man leapt onto the roof of a mini van, sending out more shields, but the beast was upon him—he opened his great maw to rip open the man’s shoulder—</p><p>
  <em>Thunk!</em>
</p><p>The woman had thrown her phone at the beast’s head, which had done little to injure him but was sufficient to distract him. His horrible head snapped toward her and he lunged for her hungrily.</p><p>She screamed and closed her eyes, waiting for impact, but at once the sounds around her were muffled—she opened her eyes and found herself secured inside a large see-through bubble. Momentarily thwarted, the beast went for the man again, who seemed to dance around him effortlessly, ducking behind cars and creating more shields. The woman had the sneaking suspicion that the green-eyed man was in fact the predator of this fight, and was slowly wearing out his prey.</p><p>She stood and reached out tentatively to touch the surface of the bubble just as a jet of red sparks came right for her. She ducked, but the sparks ricocheted off the surface of the bubble and sailed straight back toward the beast, who was knocked back.</p><p>The bespectacled man swung his stick overhead like a lasso and flung his arm out at the beast, who at once appeared to have been tightly bound by invisible ropes. His arms and legs snapped together and he fell over helplessly. The dimly lit street fell once more into echoing silence.</p><p>The green-eyed man gave two casual flicks of that stick and the broken fire hydrant spontaneously reassembled itself and the flow of water ceased immediately. The second flick popped the bubble.</p><p>As he approached, the woman, now completely soaked from the fire hydrant, realized she was still miraculously holding her pepper spray. She pointed it at him.</p><p>“I’d rather you didn’t use that,” said the man, also dripping wet. His voice was weary, but kind. The woman held her aim.</p><p>“Are you hurt?” he asked.</p><p>She shook her head, knees wobbling, then collapsed onto the fire hydrant.</p><p>“Here. This will help with the shock.”</p><p>The man reached into his cloak and produced a small glass vial with golden liquid inside. He held it out to her, but she was too stunned to take it.</p><p>“Thank you, by the way,” he said, handing her phone back to her. “That was some quick thinking back there.”</p><p>Under the streetlight and close up, she saw his face in greater detail. He had smatterings of gray hair around his temples, and with his wet bangs pushed aside, the woman could see the man bore a curious scar on his forehead. The thought came to her unbidden that, despite the scar, he was really very handsome. “Who are you?” she wheezed.</p><p>He smiled, stowing the stick in his cloak. “Good question. But I’m afraid I can’t tell you.”</p><p>“Who is <em>that</em>?” she tried, nodding nervously at the wolf-like man.</p><p>“Someone who’s murdered a lot of people and was planning to murder a lot more. We’ve been tracking them for weeks.”</p><p>She had no idea who “we” was. “Is he dead?”</p><p>“No. Just Petrified.”</p><p>“That makes two of us.”</p><p>The man chuckled.</p><p>“Here. You really ought to drink this.” He held out the vial again, and something made her take it. She tried futilely to find danger in his bewitching eyes as she uncorked it, and thought dimly of how mad her sister would think her if she ever found out she’d accepted a drink from a stranger in an alley after watching him incapacitate five men with nothing but a bit of wood.</p><p>The drink tasted like peppermint.</p><p>At once, warmth spread through her body and her heart seemed to be beating more smoothly. She took a deep breath and found it steady.</p><p>“Better?” he asked.</p><p>She nodded weakly.</p><p>“I’m sorry you had to get involved with this,” he sighed. Then he looked around them, as if taking in their location properly for the first time. “What are you doing out here alone?”</p><p>“I . . . I was walking home from the club.”</p><p>“I see. Do you need a ride?”</p><p>The woman thought it too bold to risk accepting a drink <em>and </em>a ride from a stranger in one night, even if it was the same seemingly kind man.</p><p>“No, I’m all right. I know where I am now.” Indeed, the muffled sounds of cars, people laughing, and upbeat music echoed distantly to her right.</p><p>The man nodded, eyeing her keenly as if trying to decipher something. Feeling awkward under his gaze, the woman looked down at her phone out of habit.</p><p>“Hey, full bars!” she exclaimed automatically.</p><p>The man raised his eyebrows.</p><p>“Sorry—I didn’t have any signal earlier, and then when the two of you were . . .”</p><p>“Oh, of course, it wouldn’t work with—” He stopped himself and restarted. “We were interfering with the functionality of your phone.”</p><p>The woman nodded, wishing she could figure out who the enigmatic “we” was.</p><p>The man cleared his throat.</p><p>“So. You’ve seen, well, a considerable amount of magic tonight, and even though that was pretty unavoidable at least on my part”—he looked back at the bound men—“the Ministry will no doubt want me to do something about you.”</p><p>The woman grew nervous again. Was he threatening her?</p><p>His eyes flicked back to hers through his round glasses and he grinned knowingly, as if he’d heard what she was thinking.</p><p>“But you strike me as a clever person. I’m not certain a Memory Charm is necessary in this case.” He seemed to be speaking to himself moreso than to her. “No undue trauma, no physical injuries . . .” He looked back at her and spoke very quickly, as if reciting something. “Are you flabbergasted beyond your wildest imaginings and cannot imagine the burdensome task of resuming normal life after witnessing the unexplainable events of this evening?”</p><p>The woman blinked, then shook her head; no seemed like the right answer.</p><p>He grinned again. “I didn’t think so. Perhaps another Calming Draught for good measure”—he plucked another golden vial from his cloak and handed it to her.</p><p>“Right.” He walked back to the unflinching form of the wolf-like man some ten yards away and, removing his stick, somehow made the man float in midair. He muttered something to the man, but she couldn’t have heard him right—she thought he’d said “It’s back to Azkaban for you.”</p><p>He levitated the other four, bound them together by more rope, grasped the man’s rigid arm and began the strange-looking pirouette she’d seen earlier, before seeming to remember something vitally important and turning back to face her.</p><p>“Oh—I suppose you know not to tell anyone about what you’ve seen,” he said shrewdly. “And in any case, I’m certain you know no one will believe you.”</p><p>She gaped at him.</p><p>He smiled. “Nice to meet you, by the way.”</p><p>And with that he spun on the spot with a loud bang, and the woman found herself alone in the darkness once more.</p><p>✸</p>
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